Subject(s): Central-local government relations in Japan -- City planning in Japan. -- Decentralization in government in Japan -- Global and local urban japan -- Local initiatives and the decentralization of power -- Concentration and deconcentration in the context of the Tokyo capital region plan and recent cross-border networking concepts -- Financial stress in the Japanese local public sector in the 1990s -- Centralization, urban planning governance, and citizen participation -- Machizukuri in Japan : historical perspective on participatory community building initiatives -- Kyoto -- Competing models of local autonomy and the townscape in the old imperial capital -- Decentralization polices