Transnationalizing Tokyo: The Gaijin Ghetto

Without going too deep into Japanese history, but giving at least an overview of the first settling of foreigners in Japan and the development of an externally induced foreigners’ ghetto in the nineteenth century, this chapter opens the empirical parts of the book by discussing the so-called gaijin ghetto of today which appears to have developed endogenously. The leading question is how this area was selected to become a foreigners’ residential area at first, how it has further developed as an exclusive expatriates’ “ghetto” and what impact it has on the urban development and society nowadays. Interestingly enough, the socio-spatial concentration of transnational professionals in present-day Tokyo has a long history reaching back to the nineteenth century.