In this path-breaking book, Mahito Hayashi explores the rescaled geographies of homelessness that have been produced in contemporary Japanese cities. Through an original synthesis of regulationist political economy and immersive place-based research, Hayashi situates urban homelessness in Japan in comparative-international contexts. The book offers new theoretical perspectives from which to decipher emergent forms of urban marginality and their contestation.
Neil Brenner, Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology, University of Chicago

Mahito Hayashi traces the shifting spatial strategies of unhoused people as they create spaces of emancipation within Japanese cities. Attending to the complexities of contentious class politics and livelihoods barely sustained by the survival economies,Rescaling Urban Poverty is a unique and valuable contribution to the study of the geographies of urban social movements.
Nik Theodore, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois Chicago

Rescaling Urban Poverty provides the essential understanding of how state rescaling ensnares homeless and impoverished people in the interplay of the state, domiciled society, public space, urban class relations, social movements, and capitalism. Its three anglesnational states, public and private spaces, and urban social movementsuncover the hidden dynamics of rescaling that emerge, and are resisted, at the fringes of mainstream (domiciled) society and its housing regimes/classes. Evidence is drawn from Japanese cities where the author has conducted long-term fieldwork and develops robust urban narratives by mobilising spatial regulation theory, metabolism theory, state theory, and critical housing theory.Rescaling Urban Poverty cross-fertilises these strands through meticulous efforts to reinterpret both old and new texts. By building bridges between classical and contemporary interests, and between the theories and Japanese cities, this book attracts various audiences in geography, sociology, urban studies, and political economy.

Mahito Hayashi teaches urban studies and comparative Japanese studies at Kinjo Gakuin University, Japan. His research focuses on poverty, labour, social movements, urban theory, regulation theory, and state theory. Professor Hayashi is the author ofHomelessness and Urban Space (2014, in Japanese) and has published widely in notable journals.

List of Figures xii

List of Tables xiv

List of Abbreviations xv

Series Editor's Preface xvi

Preface and Acknowledgements xvii

Part One Theory, Method, Context 1

1. Introduction and Theoretical Framework 3

Urban Political Economy: For Homelessness? 7

State Rescaling: The Central Concept of this Book 9

Subcomponent 1: National States 13

Subcomponent 2: Public and Private Spaces 17

Subcomponent 3: Urban Social Movements 21

The Method of Theorisation in this Book 26

Postcolonial Urban Theory 30

Between Abstract and Concrete 30

The Structure of this Book 32

2. Japanese Context and the Regulationist Ethnography 37

Theory Specification 1: National States 38

Theory Specification 2: Public and Private Spaces 40

Theory Specification 3: Urban Social Movements 44

Regulationist Ethnography 45

Sites of Participatory Observation 49

The Nature of Data 53

Subaltern Materials 56

Conclusion 59

Part Two National States and Public and Private Spaces 61

3. Scales of Societalisation: Integral State and the Rescaling of Poverty 63

Theory and Its "Deviants" 64

Theoretical Framework 67

Mobilising the Theory for Japan 77

Nationalised Space of Poverty Regulation in Japan 79

New Regulatory Spaces in Japan 93

Conclusion 100

4. Rescaling Urban Metabolism I: Homeless Labour for "Housing" 103

The Urban Matrix and the Housing Classes 104

Metabolism, Societalisation, Rescaling 107

Specification of Theory 116

Metabolism and Regulation I: Locational Ethnography 122

Metabolism and Regulation II: Multicity Ethnography 130

Conclusion 132

5. Rescaling Urban Metabolism II: Homeless Labour for Money 135

Homeless Recyclers: A Regulationist Approach 136

Homeless Recyclers in Japan 139

Regulationist Ethnography I: Regulating the Recycling Metabolism 143

Regulationist Ethnography II: New Recycling Strategies 147

Regulationist Ethnography III: Movements for Homeless Recyclers 150

Conclusion 153

Part Three Urban Social Movements 155

6. Placemaking in the Inner City: Social and Cultural Niches of Homeless Activism 157

The Inner City: Beyond Regulation 158

Lefebvre in the Inner City 159

Japanese Contexts 166

Placemaking in Yokohama's Inner City: From Run-Ups to the 1970s 170

Placemaking in Yokohama's Inner City: The 1980s 176

Placemaking in Yokohama's Inner City: The 1990s 180

Conclusion 183

7. Commoning around the Inner City: Whose Public? Whose Common? 186

Commoning, Habiting, Othering 187

Commoning against Othering 189

Japanese Parameters of Commoning 191

Commoning in Yokohama in the 1970s 192

Commoning in Yokohama in the 1980s 198

Commoning in Yokohama in the 1990s-2000s 203

Conclusion 214

8. Translating to New Cities: Geographical and Cultural Expansion 216

Outlying Cities 217

Brokerage and Translation 220

Placemaking in the Outlying Cities 224

Commoning in the Outlying Cities 229

Solidarity against a New Rescaling 234

Conclusion 236

Part Four Towards the Future of Rescaling Studies 239

9. New Rescalings in Japan 241

Upscaling of Homeless Politics in the Late 2000s 241

Neoliberalisation and Workfarist Reform in the 2010s 246

Rescaling for All 249

When Public Spaces Are Closed 251

Repoliticising the Urban 253

The Inner City against Gentrification 254

COVID-19, Rescaling, Recommoning 256

10. Conclusion 258

Urban Theory and Ethnography 261

Remapping Urban Political Economy 262

Habitat and Urban Class Relations 263

Integral State Rescaling 264

References 265

Index 294