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sf2k
Tokyo renewal, carousel
thepersoniamnow
Half the country will probably eventually trickle into the Tokyo and Osaka metropolises.
jcapan
Nothing to see here. Putting all your eggs in one proverbial basket. What can possibly go wrong? It's not like Japan is prone to disasters or anything.
Aly Rustom
This is a downward spiral. As the population in rural areas dwindles, so will the public services like transport and others, making the countryside even less livable and speeding up the exodus from that area.
Ok. This is key. There are alot of these detached houses in the countryside. How about this: Have the provincial gov. buy those detached countryside houses, renovate them, and give them completely free to any young couple with 2 or more children. Make two or more babies, get a free detached house. Don't have a driver's license? Ok. If you qualify for a free detached countryside house, you'll also qualify to go to driving school and get your license, completely free. Do that, and 2 things will happen: 1. more people will have kids, and 2. more young families will move to the countryside.
Disillusioned
as the bees move closer to the hive
gogogo
Pipe dream
thepersoniamnow
Aly Rustom
But would they move to a dying countryside? A typical small town that isn't near a city here could very well be completely abandoned in 10-15 years after the elderly have gone.
Who wants to raise their child in a place with one road, one doctor, a school with 10 students? It won't bode well for their children's futures and education either.
kohakuebisu
Rather than setting incentives for (needy) people to move to the countryside, I think it would be better to improve life in the countryside so that the young people born and raised there do not continue to leave. Jobs are a big part of it, but some of it will be the mendo kusai community obligations that come with living there. Given that young people from inaka will go to less academically successful schools than city kids, many of them will not get that good jobs when they go to the city. They will also have to start paying city rents or the cost of city real estate, and raise any kids they have without grandparent support. However the big picture is that this is still better than staying in inaka.
Further to Aly's point, but the vast majority of couples in Japan who go as far as having two or more kids will already be very settled. Inaka is not full of seishain jobs on decent wages that they could be offered. The websites I've seen that offer advice about moving "ijuu" to inaka also tend to have info about "kinjo tsukiai", a euphemism for all the community obligations you get in inaka. Many city people know what inaka is like and will only move there on their own terms.
WeiWei
The same is happening around the world at an ever increasing pace. People living more closely to each other increases economic activity. It is the only way to keep up the prospect of ever increasing growth which seems to be the target these days. It will inflate the prices of land and housing, so BoJ loves it. The banks win as they can loan out more based on the value of the property. Investors win because their property prices are going up so they can charge more for rent or make more profit when they sell. The only people who don't benefit from any of this are the regular people who have daily jobs and have to live in the city...
Jalapeno
Aly, nice ideas. But there are not many jobs in the countryside, so it might attract a few freelancers, but not many others. And as other posters have said, it's flat out boring out there.
DaDude
Good for those with a stay-at-home mother. If mother is working, don't blame the country if you can't find a nursery school for your kid when they are easier to find outside the city.
Wakarimasen
As I near retirement age a little cottage in the country gets cheaper and cheaper.
dcog9065
Makes sense, the rural areas can't compete with the big cities in terms of jobs, living standards and services. I would honestly be loathe to move outside of even Minato-ku. I guess one option would be to encourage more remote work, allowing people to live further away from cities while still working
kurisupisu
Tokyo?
Pollution,stress,expensive,cramped etc
Move to Tokyo and buy a condo for fifty million yen or above and spend all your life paying it off!
Pure madness.
if there was a will for this government to invest in 'Japan' not just Tokyo then we would see an increase in population.
I even avoid visiting it as its such a pit....
Goodlucktoyou
@Aly totally agree. the ageing people in the countryside is in desperate need of new young people. big land, big houses, fresh food, etc. If i was Kan, I would of resettled half of Tohoku.
Aly Rustom
But the chance to repopulate it slowly with young couples might be an incentive. I personally would move to a dying countryside in a heartbeat. I think one reason people are moving to the city is because getting a driver's license is crazy expensive, so people just move to the city. Easier.
The idea is to get people moving to the countryside BEFORE this happens. Some towns and villages may be beyond saving, but others are not.
Thanks brother.
You know, ALOT of people could move out there if the gov also gives them land for free to farm and grow their own produce. Especially if they are young men working in construction with families to feed. I think many would go. Its better to man your own farm in peace and quiet as opposed to working in construction which is stressful, dangerous, noisy, and extremely unpleasant.
Y'know, if you have your own detached house with a big garden, you can BBQ every weekend with your family and friends as your kids run around the lawn with the family dog and you getting full on BBQ and drunk on beer and chuhais. Nothing boring about that at all brother. Sign me up right now.
Amen. EXACTLY how I feel.
Agree
Me too. I live in the Kanto area, but I have never lived in Tokyo, and my job now is not in Tokyo either (thank god) so I don't have to go and I avoid it like the plague too.
kibousha
Remember people, we're humans, not sheep, do the opposite of what the crowd is doing. If things go as planned, I'm moving to the outskirts next year.
Aly Rustom
Good luck. My family and I might be next!
MarkX
dcog9065, I'm not sure what you mean by living standards, if you mean living in a tiny cramped apt. with paper thin walls, and near train lines, busy roads or some other noisy facility, then yes, Tokyo has great living standards. I just came back from a week in Tokyo, and really don't know how people can get used to the crush of people, the constant lines, the noise, and the nonstop pace that people live at.
cleo
Tokyo is no place to live, no place to raise a family. Tiny high-rise flats, no gardens, no pets, concrete and glass and people everywhere. No thanks.
We're in Kanto not that far from Tokyo, but if it weren't for family living there (MiL and son) we'd probably never go there except on our way through to Haneda Airport. It's a dump.
pacint
Agree on central tokyo(inside the Yamanote line), never go there myself.
Many do commute from Tachikawa, Tama, Kawasaki, Machida, Saitama, Chiba, etc way better living conditions.
Kichijoji this year regained the No.1 spot where people in Kanto want to live. Last year it went to Yebisu.
CH3CHO
cleo Today 12:52 pm JST
Interesting expression.
Aly Rustom Today 11:07 am JST
All the arable land in Japan is owned by farmers. How can the government give the land free? In addition, a young can earn a lot better doing office work, or construction work as you say, than farming.
bosphorus
Unfortunately Japanese businesses don't encourage people to work remotely, making a relocation to Tokyo the only choice for people who want to find a decent job. Eventually half of Japan population will be living in this city that is already overpopulated and resembling a huge beehive. It means that daily commute will be even more difficult in the nearest future and the living standards will become even worse.
dcog9065
@MarkX: What I mean is that in central Tokyo you have access to the best transport, the best shopping, the best public facilities, the best hospitals and healthcare infrastructure, the best legal services, the best education facilities, the best events, the best international exposure, the best security services, the best utilities and data coverage, the best restaurants and food, the best nightlife, the best sports facilities and events, the best cultural facilities like museums and art galleries, the best built housing, and lets not kid ourselves, access to the best people.
I'd prefer living in a "tiny cramped apartment" with all of the above any day over living in a slightly larger 19th century tinder box at risk of collapse at any moment surrounded by a dying rural village filled with the elderly, and weeping myself to sleep each night in the cold light of an oil lantern
Aly Rustom
There is plenty of arable land which is not being Farms. Case in point, Yubari in Hokkaido
most construction jobs pay crap. Have you ever held a construction job here? I have. The pay is crap and the conditions are worse. Office work, if you can get 200,000 a month consider yourself lucky.
Aly Rustom
I'll take rural Japan any day over Tokyo
CH3CHO
Aly Rustom Today 05:51 pm JST
According to Japanese government statistics, http://www.mhlw.go.jp/toukei/youran/indexyr_e.html
table 3: Monthly Cash Salary,
Construction: 474,500 yen/month
Manufacturing: 411,200 yen/month
National Ave.: 361,600 yen/month
The wage of construction industry is higher than the average.
Toasted Heretic
Love Tokyo but couldn't live there. Couldn't afford to either, come to think of it. Rather the sticks or where there's a bit more greenery.
pacint
Which is consistent with overseas.
Blue Collar work like plumbers, etc pay better than most deskjobs too.
kohakuebisu
I freelance and have lived in the countryside for over 15 years. Obviously the environment is much better than the city and I get to enjoy outdoor sports. If you are gaijin san and on the outskirts of society and don't have to deal with anyone, it's a pretty good life. At altitude, its also much cooler in summer.
The kicker is that Japanese people from or moving to the countryside are not on the outskirts of society. They become subject to all the old-fashioned community ties and obligations that you get in spades in inaka. I think part of the attraction of city life to Japanese is that you go to work, you come home, and once you close your apartment door, no-one is going to bother you about joining the fire brigade or doing communal weed whacking or sidewalk sweeping or coerce you into being kumi cho or ku cho and lose half of your free time. Your missus won't have to join a fujinkai and spend her day off making onigiri and then planting pansies in a flowerbed covered in black plastic mulch. City schools have PTAs too, but they are nothing compared to hardcore inaka ones that will have you in every week, often during office hours, for some nonsense task that you have no say about. This side of inaka living is common sense to most Japanese, but sites dealing with "I turn" and "ijuu" (moving to inaka) warn the few people who don't know about it already.
If you want a cruisy time in inaka, I recommend moving somewhere with plenty of outsiders and not so hardcore inaka people like Karuizawa. If you think you can farm successfully, some parts of inaka already have vast stretches of unused marginal farmland that can be rented for next to nothing. If you are growing rice however, note that this can be a communal activity with various chores and it's unlikely you will be left alone to do it as you please. It's easier just to stick to having a vegetable patch.
gaijinpapa
Cleo, that wasn't very nice at all.
But the older I get, the more I agree with you....
cleo
What wasn't very nice? Tokyo isn't very nice at all.
(Are you incineratin' that I'm old??)
Aly Rustom
You believe everything the government tells you? If you do I have a bridge I want to sell you from Tokyo to North Korea.
Really? You're trying to tell everybody here that construction workers make almost 500,000 in a month? If that was the case, why do we have any Japanese people working in convenience stores for 1000 in an hour? Why do we need to import labor from overseas to work in construction and manufacturing? Most people who have a managerial position couldn't dream of a salary that huge. Your post tells me that you are completely and totally out of touch with the blue-collar workers of this country. It's interesting that you never answered my question- have you ever worked in construction? so I will ask it again -have you worked in construction or any blue-collar business for that matter? Because I'm speaking from experience when I tell you that they make very very very little money. The average construction workers starting pay is 7000 in a day 12 hours of work. When they get very very good they might be able to make 250,000 a month but they still don't get insurance nor any of the other benefits such as bonuses. And 250,000 in a month is very good for a construction worker. I'm telling you this from personal experience.
mmwkdw
Population is growing in Tokyo, yet another Story declares that there is a drop in demand for Condo's... what does that suggest ? More Kids living at home with Parents ? Or, will we soon see a rise in Rent prices (which apparently appear to have been declining of late).