Abstract
Although the comparative advantage of cities is emphasized in the context of transition into an information-oriented society and globalization, it is difficult to define the concept and evaluate the status of each city. There have been many studies and appraisals on urban competitiveness with common features of subjective standards by researchers. This study aims at extracting determinants of competitive advantage of location by not normative but data-based approach, and deals with panel data concerning 21 cities in capital region. Factor Analysis, a kind of multivariate methods, is taken up for the purpose and results in various findings. Time-serial 5-factor models constructed by the analysis show temporal variability in the determinants and have non-exhaustive and overlapped categories. This study also finds that 'educational base' is emphasized as a leading determinant and 'health, welfare and public services' factor is getting more important. The other potential factor explaining variables such as college and museum is also emerging, which is considered as an element to attract people from outside. And the fact that traditionally expected factors regarding industrial or productive basis is not drawn out indicates the other way of thinking on the relationship between the essential function of cities and industrial foundation.
