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Both theoretical and empirical research studies the factors influencing firms' location choices. This paper presents a new viewpoint by considering relationship continuity to explain small-scale relocations and relocations of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent the majority of firms. The influences of firms' relationships with financing institutions are studied using a two-stage nested logit model. Consequently, the positive effect of relationships on location choices is revealed and the factors preventing firms from moving are described. The model is valid for estimating relocations to medium-sized cities, and the influences on shrinking firms as opposed to expanding firms are especially strong.

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Inner‐city areas function as incubators of creative industries in metropolitan cities. The areas adjacent to Tokyo's city center also play an important role as a location for small to medium‐sized creative industries. First, against this background, this article explores the relationship between the characteristics of locations of creative industries and Tokyo's built environment. Aside from the city center itself, where the creative industries’ major customers are located, the authors observed a creative industry cluster to the west of the city center. We named this area the Tokyo West Creative Industry Cluster (TWCIC) and found that a ‘live–work’‐style cluster has developed there, which functions as an incubation place for creative industries. Second, by conducting a case study on urban regeneration in progress in the Shibuya Station area, a core area of the TWCIC, we further examine how gentrification caused by property‐led urban regeneration is now threatening the TWCIC. The article concludes that commercialization and purification will eventually widen spatial inequality and lead to the loss of the unique culture of tolerance and freedom that has hitherto nurtured the creative culture in TWCIC. Consequently, fundamental changes are required in property‐led creative city policies.

This study aimed at verifying a hypothesis regarding the polarization to megacity regions and the urban divide. In the first part, we examined the polarization to megacity regions in Japan focusing on concentration of wealth based on various economic statistics, as well as records of public investment. In the second part, we selected Osaka city as a case analysis for examining the urban divide inside a megacity region (based on a cluster analysis) and analyzed the current conditions of the urban divide in Osaka City. In the third part, we examined the diverse types of living in the Airin area, Nishinari Ward, Osaka City. Through analysis based on interview surveys conducted at local real estate companies, we discussed the mechanisms in housing provisions for realizing of diversity. Urban divides (in both social and spatial terms) are clearly observed in Osaka City. In particular, the Airin area of the Nishinari Ward in Osaka City is the area where daily construction workers are concentrated, and many of workers in this area are old and/or have lost jobs. Simultaneously, the Airin area functions as a place to nurture diversity, as a gateway to the city.