Characteristics of Yoshikazu Uchida Et al.'s Settlement Plan for Agricultural Migrants to Manchuria: Comparison With Other Plans and an Examination of the Study Group's Planning Process

ABSTRACT This study aimed to identify the characteristics of the settlement plan for agricultural migrants to Manchuria published by Yoshikazu Uchida and his colleagues in March 1933. First, the present author compared their plan with the Kwantung Army's contemporaneous emigration plan. Next, the author identified the agricultural migration plans used as references by Uchida and his colleagues and compared the housing group units. The author then used the Manchurian Rural Planning Study Group's records from July 1932 to January 1933 to identify how Uchida and his colleagues prepared the plan. The above analysis revealed that Uchida and his colleagues' Manchurian rural plan includes a clearer housing group unit, a wider variety of public facilities, and drawings compared to other agricultural immigration plans from the same period. Notably, Uchida and his colleagues presented a tiered unit structure with 150 and 450 dwellings depending on the type of public facility. In their early days, the study group used educational facilities as a criterion to define the housing group unit and placed schools at the center of residential areas. The analysis revealed the characteristics of the neighborhood unit in Uchida and his colleagues' plan.