No matter how much you tout the Olympic Games as a sign of recovery, the overall picture of only Tokyo prospering while the recovery of the disaster-hit areas in the Tohoku region remains undone will not change. I've been to Tokyo many times, and saw that there were more crane trucks at the construction site of the athletes' village than in the disaster-hit areas. It was obvious at a glance where the national government was placing its resources.

No kidding. I've been on this forum ever since the bid was first announced, predicting doom and potential disaster.

If govt revenues, construction labor and other resources are supposedly scarce, then why hold the world's most expensive 2-and-a-half-week party, catering mainly to a small number of elite foreign athletes? In weather that would damper their performance anyway.

If its sports they want to foster, then please improve the public facilities where I live in Tokyo, which are woefully insufficient (weekend bookings impossible) and underfunded (stinky, disgusting showers festooned with black splotches of mold ).

Unfortunately, those facilities are used by us taxpayers, whose needs obviously aren't so important.

I'm completely against the Olympics and will not attempt to justify it in any way.

However, I don't you can claim the Olympics is some proof of money not being spent in disaster-hit areas. 12-billion USD was spent on sea walls alone in Tohoku up to 2018. 12 billion USD on concrete walls and they are nowhere near finished. After the earthquake in Kumamoto, over 600 million USD has been budgeted to fix the castle walls under the concrete replica castle. I doubt these projects help the vast majority of local people, but their representatives, maybe not this former mayor but certainly some other mayors, must have signed off on them. If national government resources are being wasted in disaster-hit areas, the areas themselves carry some responsibility. Throwing more money at Tohoku is no guarantee at all that it will go on people's "needs".

https://www.businessinsider.com/japan-seawalls-cost-12-billion-since-fukushima-disaster-2018-3#still-some-locals-are-glad-to-have-a-wall-i-cant-say-things-like-the-wall-should-be-lower-or-we-dont-need-it-katsuhiro-hatakeyama-who-has-rebuilt-his-bed-and-breakfast-business-in-the-same-location-as-before-told-reuters-its-thanks-to-the-wall-that-i-could-rebuild-and-now-have-a-job-16

Wait! Is he trying to tell us the government cares more about the Olympics than they do about the disaster-hit areas? Well, most Japanese people I spoke with before the pandemic hit, seemed obsessed with the Olympics too. It is not just a government thing. Tohoku is only on people's minds when there's a photo-op or feel-good story. Most people don't really care unless they have a direct connection.

The govt seems hellbent on the Olympics, at the expense of the people.

Whilst I have sympathies for all the jobs affected should the Games be cancelled permanently, I must side with our hosts in this fine land who are being treated with contempt by the PM.

Tokyo is spending its money on Tokyo Olympics..i don't see any problem.

Besides Tohoku people are so fragmented, the central govt wants to relocate the people near the coastal areas into the highland but some people wants to rebuild near the coast while others wants to move to the hilly areas so construction for rehabilitation is not moving. Inaka people are troublesome to deal with.

Hear! Hear! For Mr. Sakurai! Each time I've gone to Tokyo since then, I've been making the same comment to my wife over and over after seeing the continual mass construction of ...well... everything.

Conversely, whenever I visit my family up in Miyagi, reconstruction or what Tokyo refers to as revitalization, looks pretty damn dire. Tokyo always looks like they've hit the giant lottery jackpot.

Spot on. Sakurai san is bang on the money.

Why do I foresee the Olympics being cancelled again next year, the Tokyo Olympics becoming a "sign of humanity's failure over the coronavirus"?