The Locational Changes of Branch Offices in Kagoshima City and Their Territories

In recent years, the agglomeration and location of corporate head offices or branch offices in some cities have been subjects of economic-geographical and urban-geographical studies. The main objects of these studies have been limited primarily to major cities of the nation or of particular areas, such as Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. With a few exceptions, local cities such as prefectural seats have not been dealt with. This paper, then, deals with economic-geographical characteristics of branch offices in Kagoshima City, the prefectural seat of Kagoshima prefecture. This paper has two main objectives The first objective is to research the locational changes of branch offices in Kagoshima city. The second is to re-examine the place of Kagoshima city in the Kyushu regional urban system which has formed under the top-city of Fukuoka, through the examination of the territories of branch offices in Kagoshima city. To achieve these objectives, a questionnaire was distributed to 322 branch offices of large joint-stock corporations which have head-offices outside Kagoshima prefecture. The findings are as follows: The number of branch offices that these corporations placed in Kagoshima City increased during the l96Os, the middle of the economic high-growth period.This pattern is similar to patterns in some prefectural seat cities that have already been researched. However, although a high rate of expansion of branch offices into some prefectural seat cities was maintained in the l98Os, expansion into Kagoshima City decreased in this period. On the other hand, many branch offices of financial and insurance corporations had been established in Kagoshima City before 1960. Between 1970 and 1990, more and more branch offices were located in the south part to Kagoshima City. Newcotners, especially in manufacturing, were one source of this increase, and another was the relocation of branch offices of manufacturing, constructioru, commerce and service industries from the old central business district, the area between Nishi-Kagoshima station and Kagoshima station, to the south part of the city, south of the Kohtsuki river. There are probably several reasons for this movement. For one thing, there is not sufficient room for new office space in the old central business district. Also, "Kamoike New Town," the former lacation of Kagoshima airport in the south part of the city, was improved in the 1970s, providing more office space. Yet, many financial and insurance branch offices still tend to be located in the north part of the city. While 61.1% of the offices in Kagoshima City have head offices in Tokyo, 63.3% are immediately subordinate to offices in the city of Fukuoka, which clearly ranks higher than Kagoshima City. On the other hand, Kagoshima City has territory both inside atad outside Kagoshima prefecture, though normally the territories of prefectural seat cities are said to be limited to their own prefectures. In particular, much of Miyazaki prefecture is under the influence of Kagoshima City. Also, the branch offices of manufacturing industries typically have influence far beyond Kagoshima prefecture, though the construction industry branch offices, whose territory generally would cover a wide area, do not. Regarding future territories of the branch offices in Kagoshima City, about30% of the offices expect changes. In the case of manufacturing, commerce and service industries, territories are expected to expand, though responses to the questionnaire indicate that finance, insttrance and construction corporations expect that their territories will be stabilized. Classified by prefecture, branch offices territories in Kagoshima prefecture are expected to expand, those in Miyazaki prefecture anticipated to keep a balance between expansion and reduction, and those in other prefectures are expected to be reduced.