67 of 1947 on April 17,[2][3] is an Act of devolution that established most of Japan's contemporary local government structures and administrative divisions, including prefectures, municipalities[3] and other entities.
While special wards are regarded as basic local governments within Tokyo, other special LPEs are consortia of LPEs for specific fields such as schools, waterworks and waste management.
The Local Autonomy Act (paragraph 5 of Article 2) was revised in 1969 that required local governments to produce a forward-looking Basic Plan (kihon keikaku) for their long-term economic and social development, to cover a duration of around 25 years.
Takegawa notes that in 1970, less than 10% of local governments had made comprehensive plans, by 1975 the number had gone up to 75%, and in 1980 it was almost 90%.
[6] In January 2011, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced plans to revise the law to enable the national government to investigate the laws of the LPEs for extralegality and place lawsuits against them if they fail to correct their actions.