Le commerce dans la ville vernaculaire comme créateur d'ambiances urbaines. Le cas de Tokyo

International audienceMany occidental megalopolises have experienced a dramatic polarization between a vibrant and intense town center and a suburban sprawl eventually magnified and encouraged by large retail centers linked to highway hubs. On the opposite, Tokyo's compact megalopolis has succeeded in the display of a city-region scheme with a polycentric structure (Frey, 1999). Outside the railway ring of the Yamanote line, there are suburban centralities accumulating almost the same variety of urban functions that the inner city center. As a consequence of an urban planning deeply tied to vernacular logics, these peripheral centers exemplify today a way of sustainable urban metabolism that manages to create attractive urban ambiences