In September 1923, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the Tokyo area triggering thousands of aftershocks, raging fires, and the massacre of resident Koreans by Japanese citizens. What came to be known as the Great Kanto earthquake devastated the capital, ravaging the low city with particular ferocity. As Tokyoites rebuilt their city and their daily lives, changes that had been stirring for the past couple of decades accelerated. The many residents who moved out of the low city helped shift the capital’s center of gravity westward into Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Suginami wards and the suburbs beyond. The white-collar, middle-class suburban commuter had an increasingly recognizable pattern of living. An urban culture of consumption and leisure flourished, from the department store to the café. And the “modern girl” appeared in Tokyo as she did in cities around the world, embodying the promises and threats of shifting roles for women, pleasures and perils of consumerism, and allures and dangers of cosmopolitan entertainment. The urban culture of the post-earthquake years persisted into the 1930s as the nation edged closer to fascism and deepened its commitment to war.