Global city formation in a capitalist developmental state: Tokyo and the waterfront sub-centre project

It is widely believed that the integration of the global economy and the development of information technology have led to the creation of the world city as a centre of command-and-control functions in the world economy. However, as each city is nested in its national and regional context, such a simple deterministic logic is not satisfactory. This article explores the world city formation of Tokyo by investigating the decision-making process of the Tokyo waterfront sub-centre, one of the flagship urban development projects. The author argues that the institutional relations among the national and local governments, and the business community in Tokyo were grounded in the country's unique tradition of a state-capital relationship which can be explained by capitalist developmental state theory.