Ten years of regional revitalization Have regions actually revitalized?
Launching goals for each metropolitan area and returning to income-raising measures are issues for renewed challenge.
November 05, 2024
Summary
◆This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the government's efforts to revitalize local communities, which began in 2014. Originally, this was a system of strategies to increase average income by strengthening earning power by leveraging regional strengths in light of the declining birthrate, aging population, depopulation, and other problems. Along the way, through the confluence of SDGs and Society 5.0 principles, and changes in the “Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation” concept, interest in raising incomes based on securing growth potential has become relatively diluted, but recognition of the issue of correcting the concentration of people in Tokyo has remained consistent.
◆On the other hand, the concentration in Tokyo has not been halted. Looking at population changes over the five-year period from 2015 to 2020, approximately 80% of the municipalities, or 1,419 groups, experienced a decrease in population, and another 60%, or 882 groups, had a decrease rate of more than 5%. Conversely, the population of Tokyo's special wards increased by 5%.
◆In the case of small communities with populations of less than 100,000 that were able to maintain population levels, most of them were in metropolitan areas. Smaller entities that do not belong to metropolitan areas, which overlap with cities with the potential to disappear, may be the main target of local development, but their population decline has generally not been halted.
◆Aside from the issue of declining birthrates, the importance of correcting the concentration of people in Tokyo remains unchanged in terms of disaster risk and other factors. In promoting regional revitalization in the future, it is recommended that the unit for population retention targets be changed from individual cities, towns, and villages to urban areas. In order to retain population in local urban areas, it is important to return to the income improvement measures that were brought to the forefront in the first phase of regional revitalization, based on the relationship between income levels and population outflow.
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