As Tokyo recovered from wartime devastation and drew a new wave of aspiring middle-class urbanites from the 1950s, new sites of leisure activities sprouted to join--and to some extent eclipse--some of the older popular spots. Asakusa and the Ginza still attracted crowds, but postwar youth tended to gravitate toward the new entertainment and shopping areas which developed around transportation hubs on the west side of the city.

Shinjuku and Shibuya--train stations and wards along the Yamanote loop line--are most notable, each having its own personality and range of bars, restaurants, clubs, theaters, shops, and shows. Harajuku, another youth mecca, lies between them. Harajuku's central boulevard, Omote Sandô, leads to Yoyogi Park, which was developed in the early 1960s and engulfs the shrine dedicated to the Meiji emperor. Because of the presence of Meiji Shrine, x-rated amusements common in Shinjuku and Shibuya have been banned from Harajuku, making it a natural draw for the hip teenage set who shops for name brands on Takeshita Dôri. On Sundays since the early 1980s, a spectacle of singing, dancing, and posing kids have also filled the road running through the southern edge of Yoyogi Park. Skirting the east side of Harajuku is Aoyama, which with Shibuya currently hosts a lively club and DJ bar scene.

In this PopSite you will trip through some of the street culture and fashion scene of Harajuku as it existed in the mid-1980s and poke into some of hip-hop clubs and DJ bars in Aoyama-Shibuya as they existed in the 1990s. View this site in the context of this week's material on youth culture and consumption. Then consume PopThought 5.