ancient cities

printing, electronics, steel and metal, general
machinery, automobiles, precision instruments,
chemicals, pharmaceuticals, information technology,
video games, digital animation, fashion, and
design and architecture. Publications and printing
and information industries are concentrated in central
Tokyo; general machinery, electronics, precision
instruments, and transport are in the southern
waterfront on the east and the edge of western
Tokyo; chemical and pharmaceutical industries are
in western suburban Tokyo. Some of these industry
clusters have traditionally been in Tokyo.
New industry clusters such as information technology,
video games, and digital animation have
developed out of traditional industry clusters in the
1990s. Information technology clusters that have
emerged in downtown Tokyo are typically clustered
around the major stations of train and subway lines
in central Tokyo. Tokyo is now creating new international
R&D for life science clusters in western
suburban Tokyo and the bay area under the state–
industry cluster plan. About 90 percent of Tokyo
firms have fewer than 20 employees. A high degree
of place-based industry clusters protects small firms
from being swallowed by large corporations and
enables them to play a dynamic role in technology
innovation, the consumer market, and the versatile
economy. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government
(TMG) protects small businesses through various
policies along with national policies.
Industry clusters are the vital component of
Tokyo’s economic base and the driving force of
Tokyo’s technological and market changes as well.
New products and technologies come out of a powerful
network of relationships—among headquarters,
R&D centers, small firms engaged in prototype
production, and mother plants for testing and pilot
production that are all located in geographical
proximity. When they prove successful in Tokyo’s
demanding test markets like Ginza, Shinjuku,
Shibuya, and Akihabara, higher-volume production
for domestic and global markets is usually turned
over to plants located elsewhere in Japan, East Asia,
and other parts of the world. The Tokyo economy
is sustained by the simultaneous development of the
greater metropolitan region and East Asia.
Tokyo’s relationship to the world is not driven
by global market logic but by the Japanese state’s
strategic concern to preserve national autonomy in
the world order. Because of state-led globalization,
Tokyo, Japan
815
Tokyo is mainly a national base for the global
operations of Japanese transnational companies.
Japan’s managed-trade policy keeps foreign investment
in Japan minuscule (less than 5 percent of
GDP, even in 2008).
Innovation and Culture
Reflecting its old culture and history, Tokyo has
long survived periodic innovation that renewed the
city. Tokyo’s innovation is not based on creative
destruction in the neoclassical economic sense but
continuity with the past. It is evolutionary, not
breakthrough. Historically, Tokyo kept traditional
arts and cultures but simultaneously attracted new
and international arts and cultures, mingling both
traditional and new and creating something else.
Tokyo’ innovation starts with the creation of
new ideas and knowledge. Tokyo has historically
been Japan’s nexus for the global conversion of
knowledge from outside the company to inside
and then outside again as the principal mechanism
by which the Japanese economy creates new products
and services. Tokyo’s transnational corporations
take their services and products outside
Tokyo and Japan and try them out globally. Testing
these innovations out in Tokyo’s test markets and
getting inspiration from consumer reactions, they
then incorporate the new ideas into new services
and products. Consumer markets that function as
test markets are located in spatial agglomerations
of commercial activity and culture, located near
transportation hubs where several millions of passengers
come and go. They are often linked to
specific industries, products, and services; companies
and consumers test out the newest product
ideas and set fashion trends.
Tokyo’s high-quality transport and communication
infrastructure speeds the flow of information
among nodes in the network. Tokyo’s agglomeration
of financial institutions and business services
provides network actors with capital and specialized
expertise. Tokyo’s wide range of industries
facilitates prototype production and market experimentation.
Tokyo’s vast number of bars, restaurants,
and nightclubs facilitate informal face-to-face
communications. Tokyo’s concentration of universities
turns out a highly educated workforce.
The egalitarian and participatory culture of the
Tokyo consuming public is also visible in animation