The Utilization of Space
Ways of Scouts Applying Knowledge for Their Advance
by Nanami
There is information that only people who regularly go to Kabukio-cho can recognize. On the one hand, Kabuki-cho intrigues people with a variety of entertainment because public gear in Kabuki-cho's economy rely on entertainment such as Toho cinema, drinking places, and Karaoke. Visitors may pay more attention to those flashy faces of Kabuki-cho rather than pedestrians and geographical structures. On the other hand, regular attendants for example JR Shinjuku staff, catch, and scouts may be much more familiar with Kabuki-cho's characters.
It is not a target but scouts have a great amount of knowledge on spaces in Kabuki-cho. This different amount of knowledge allows scouts to approach targets. For example, considering scouts’ territories for patrolling, it is possible to see that scouts are totally knowledgeable about the people’s flow and how much crowd there is over time on the one hand. Accumulated information are important to affect whether scouts can effectively approach and hopefully get targets or not. On the other hand, targets are not knowledgeable about that information. They just walk according to directions with pedestrians’ flow. Moreover, because Shinjuku has over 3.53 million passengers a day, not all pedestrians have been to Kabuki-cho.
High ratio of targets’ appearances creates territories
ALTA-Mae Square and crosswalk
Patrolling Territory
Scouts have multiple territories while they have one hub. They move between these territories using their past experiences of scouting. Those territories are where enhance possibilities to find and approach targets. Their database about the relationship between location and successful approaches are compiled beforehand.
The locations of territories are in front of ALTA Station Square, Hiroba, the Shinjuku east exit underground concourse underneath, paths connecting to Moa 2nd street, and aisles leading to Hanamichi-dori. Those locations are available from each hub.
Underground concourse underneath ALTA
Shinjuku has one of the most concentrative surveillance in Japan (Yoshino, 2018). However, scouts' spatial strategies proficiently circumvents the risks of being cautioned or questioned by security for loitering. What allows them to patrol their territories without obstacles are their abundance of knowledge on urban space and know-how to scan through pedestrians.
Seeing People’s Flow
Kabuki-cho has a lot of pedestrians all day long. From the Shinjuku east exit to the entrance of Kabuki-cho, pedestrians are flowing from several directions. Especially, avenues and streets with many drinking places are overcrowded in spite of the epidemic of Covid-19. The crossings near Shinjuku east exit and Kabuki-cho allow pedestrians to radiate out in all directions. It is often said that Japanese crossing is surprising for foreign visitors since with all the enormous number of pedestrians crossing the street at once for just a few minutes, they hardly bumped into others. Examining this phenomenon, there are actually two reasons for this with two types of spaces. Scouts wisely apply those knowledge to their jobs.
Type 1. Crossing
First,
According to the observations about proxemics, pedestrians walk behind "pioneers". The pioneer refers to the person who walks ahead of the majority of pedestrians. Following this pioneer while crossing the street allows to circumvent the collisions. Although it rains, this functions well without any obstacles.
Second,
Walking and moving adroitly, it is possible to avoid people coming from all around. Pedestrians living in the urban city never break the people's flow by stopping dead in one's tracks. In the crossing, pedestrians mostly walk in step with other pedestrians, which ultimately turns into hidden rituals there.
Type 2. Walking on Main Street
First,
“Blasé are frequently used to describe urbanites’ attitudes toward one another” and “uncivilized, uncaring, indifferent, reserved, uncommunicative” (p.88)”.
First, a group of pedestrians is easier to walk on the main street than walking alone because pedestrians from the counter side avoid them before the group wading off. This is similar to blasé attitudes. A group of pedestrians are the one that is seen as indifferent from urbanites that is why they are circumvented.
Second,
Second, predicting counter pedestrians' directions, there is no need to worry about bumping into someone. For example, on main streets such as Moa 2nd street and Central road, pedestrians do not always walk straight but cut across the street by a shortcut unlike crossings like Yasukuni-dori and Shinjuku-dori. Therefore, it is important to expect the flow of other pedestrians in order not to collide.
Considering the reasons in two types of spaces that pedestrians differently make head, scouts definitely grasp their movements. When approaching targets, getting caught in the flow is an unfavorable condition for scouts. They rather approach along with the flow. For instance, in the crossing, targets move quickly and walk behind the pioneer so that scouts do not have rooms to approach. However, changing the places where have different people's flow such as in-between Moa 2nd street and Yasukuni-dori (marked star), pedestrians from Yasukuni-dori mostly flow to Moa 2nd street to head to Shinjuku and people's flow on Moa 2nd street, main street, is relatively draw level. That is, scouts choose where the spatial structure and the flow absolutely take side with scouts.
Pedestrians’ flow on the Main Street and Crossing
Also, scouts grasp areas and referring to the direction targets came from, scouts can expect what type of people targets are. For example, if targets come from love hotel districts, she might be a worker already. Or if the target comes from Shinjuku station, she may come to Kabuki-cho for drinking or host clubs. Also, targets' appearances enable scouts further to infer the targets' types. The direction of people ultimately helps scouts successfully scan pedestrians and turn them into targets.
Predicting Traffic
As pedestrians avoid people walking from the counter side, the traffic in Kabuki-cho creates a chaotic flood of people and it prevents them from walking straight. In Kabuki-cho, scouts know the types of traffic. According to the type, they work effectively.
First, the prediction of traffic is important to protect themselves from security. According to observations, the underground of Shinjuku is especially reinforced by security guards and police officers at night which scouts actively work. The more crowded it is the more risks they can ward off. The second reason is that the more population increases the possibilities to encounter targets originally from pedestrians.
This also helps scouts to expect targets' types. For example, host club customers head to see hosts since it opens from night time. Those customers are often in negative circulation so-called ホス狂い*. They spend large amounts of money on hosts. In order to make it up, they engage in work (Nakamura, 2020). Customers of host clubs are easy prey for scouts, which matches with scouts' objectives. Aiming pedestrians at night time increases possibilities to find targets.
The Location of Hubs
The location of scouts' hubs are where pedestrians come from several directions. While scouts predict traffic according to how much it is crowded and popularity over time to narrow down targets from pedestrians, spaces with heterogeneous may have more possibilities to find out targets.
For instance, the demographics of pedestrians coming from Kabuki-cho and heading to Shinjuku station at night are different. In other words, demographics of pedestrians in the daytime does not help scouts to turn them into a target. What scouts need to do is only scanning pedestrians' qualifications as a commodities in the industry; therefore, they want to pick the targets by following the time with targets.
Conclusion
Understanding spaces in Kabuki-cho allows scouts to utilize in their advantages. Territories, People’s flow, traffics over time, and hubs are the nothing more than parts of what is observable. Urban spaces have ever-changing according to times, people, and purposes.
*ホス狂い, women who crazily spend huge amount of money on her favorite host, is an abbreviation of ホスト狂い(direct translation: host, going insane).