"Osaka enjoyed its status as Japan's leading industrial city, and was proud of its nicknames 'the Capital of Smoke' and 'the Manchester of the Orient'. During the rapid growth period Osaka could rightly boast of its status as workshop to the world, and many of Japan's premier heavy industrial conglomerates which led the economic expansion of the rapid growth period were based in the Kansai region centered on Osaka."

From: Sorensen, Andre. The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and planning from Edo to the twenty-first century. New York: Routledge, 2002.