New Urban Sociology began in Europe at the beginning of the 1970s and then spread to the United States. It also influenced urban studies in Japan. This article examines the changing debates that have occurred in New Urban Sociology since its introduction to Japan in the late 1970s. The twenty years since its introduction from the West can be divided into three stages. The first covers the period from 1977 to 1985, when French urban sociology, particularly Manuael Castells’ theory of the state, was highly influential. The second stage, from 1986 to 1992, focused on theories of urban social movements and the concept of global city in a context of urban renewal in Japan’s major cities. The third stage, from 1992 to the present, is characterized by a transformation of New Urban Sociology into a sociological theory of space under globalization that has been heavily influenced by the work of David Harvey.