Development of Informational Cities in Japan: A Regional Comparison

Categories And Indicators

All the types of cities listed above can be unified in the concept of the ICs and an extensive catalogue of indicators to measure the degree of cities’ informativeness was introduced by Stock (2011). According to Stock (2011), ICs are World Cities, Knowledge Cities, and Creative Cities with highly developed ICT infrastructures. ICs should also be Smart Cities, enhancing the quality of life and promoting sustainable energy solutions. Furthermore, ICs are characterised by a distinct labour market and corporate structure as well as some negative social consequences like the job polarization. Moreover, the urban development of the ICs should be supported by political initiatives as well as the strong interaction between the government and citizens. These aspects are investigated in the context of the e-Governance and e-Government in the city. Finally, the ICs have a “magnet effect”, which is created not only by the hard location factors but also the soft location factors, e.g. shopping malls, leisure facilities, and architainment (Stock, 2011; Yeoh & Chang, 2001). Basing our work on these characteristics, we formulated indicators to investigate for each category of an IC.