Christoph Brumann is Head of Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany.

Evelyn Schulz is Full Professor for Japanese Studies at Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany.

1. Introduction 2. Urbanisation, City, and City System in Japan Between Development and Shrinking: Coping with Shrinking Cities in Times of Demographic Change 3. The Colonial Appropriation of Public Space: Architecture and City Planning in Japanese-Dominated Manchuria 4. Re-Uniting a Divided City: High-Rises, Conflict, and Urban Space in Central Kyoto 5. Re-Imagining Public Space: The Vicissitudes of Japan's Privately Owned Public Spaces 6. Citizen Participation and Urban Development in Japan and Germany: Issues and Problems 7. Indifferent Communities: Neighbourhood Associations, Class and Community Consciousness in Pre-War Tokyo 8. Who Cares about the Past in Today's Tokyo? 9. Gendered Modes of Appropriating Public Space 10. Walking the City: Spatial and Temporal Configurations of the Urban Spectator in Writings on Tokyo 11. Shrinking Cities and Liveability in Japan: Emerging Relationships and Challenges