by Tu Thanh Ngo (Frank Tu)

Policies to revitalize rural areas are nothing new in Japan. Revitalization policies date back to the 1930s when the Farm, Mountain and Fishing Village Economic Revitalization Campaign (1932–1941) was initiated that was followed by a series of laws and policies, such as the Promotion Services for Home Living Improvement (1940s–late 1950s), the Basic Agricultural Law (1961), the Mountain Village Promotion Act (1965), the Emergency Act for the Improvement of Depopulated Areas (1970) or the Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas (1999) [1].

However, a new policy has been introduced in 2014 by then Prime Minister Abe Shinzō that became the epitome of rural revitalization. According to a Chiikiryoku Advisor for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, “Regional revitalization (chihō sōsei) was born under the Abe Cabinet” (personal online communication, 16 June 2021). According to Hijino (2017) and Yoshizawa (2019), the Abe administration did not only introduce the term chihō sōsei, but also framed rural revitalization as a flagship policy. The term chihō sōsei refers to a policy titled “Machi, hito, shigoto sōsei” and its policy framework “Machi, hito, shigoto sōsei sōgō senryaku” [Comprehensive Strategy for Communities, People and Work] [2].

The Comprehensive Strategy’s intention is to centralize all strategies used for rural revitalization, decentralization of population in Tokyo, and anti-depopulation under one single framework [2]. The Comprehensive Strategy consists of four objectives [3]:

1. Create a stable economic environment in rural areas
2. Strengthen the ties between rural and urban areas to attract new in-migrants
3. Provide support for marriage, childbearing, and child-rearing in rural areas
4. Create a safe living environment 

In essence, the Comprehensive Strategy “aims at reversing the population flow into the greater Tokyo area” [4]. To be specific, by the end of the first five-year phase, the government expected to reduce the number of in-migrants to the Tokyo region by 60,000 people and to increase the number of out-migrants from the Tokyo region by 40,000 people [5]. In addition, the Comprehensive Strategy is expected to “make it easy for young couples to live and work full-time with support from the local government” [4] by creating 300,000 new jobs in rural areas [5]. On how to achieve the goals that the Comprehensive Strategy sets out to do, the MIC advisor quoted earlier wrote: “From my point of view, regional revitalization needs to consider transportation, living standards – including education, income, etc.” (personal online communication, 16 June 2021).

However, as mentioned above, policies to revitalize rural Japan existed long before Abe’s Comprehensive Strategy. Thus, although all existing policies have now been centralized to constitute one regional revitalization policy framework, is this new policy a breakthrough or just merely old wine in new bottles? This is what we want to find out through our project that studies the implementation and the impact of the Comprehensive Strategy in four municipalities in Kyushu. In addition, we will also pay attention to how the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy differs across different levels of government (national, prefectural and municipal).  

[1]
Feldhoff, T. (2013) ‘Shrinking communities in Japan: Community ownership of assets as a development potential for rural Japan?’, Urban Design International, 18(1), pp. 99–109.

Nakama, Y. and Uchida, K. (2010), ‘Seikatsu Kaizen Fukyū Jigyō no Rinen to Jittai: Yamaguchi ken wo jirei ni’, Nōringyō Mondai Kenkyū, 178, pp. 1–13.

Smith, K. (2003), ‘Building the model village: Rural revitalization and the Great Depression’, in Farmers and village life in twentieth-century Japan. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 126–155.

[2]
Hijino, K. V. L. (2017), Local Politics and National Policy: Multi-level conflicts in Japan and Beyond. London and New York: Routledge.

Yoshizawa, Y. (2019), ‘Chūō Seifu ni okeru “Chihōsōsei” no Seisaku katei to seifu kan kankei’, Seiji Keizaigaku Kenkyū Ronshū, 4, pp.1-20.

[3]
Office of the Prime Minister (2014), Machi, Hito, Shigoto Sōsei Sōgō Senryaku ni tsuite, Shushō Kantei. Available at: https://www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/sousei/pdf/20141227siryou5.pdf.

[4]
Kumagai, F. (2020), Municipal Power and Population Decline in Japan: Goki-Shichido and Regional Variations. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.

[5]
Nakamura, Y. (2015), ‘Chihō Sōsei o meguru Sōgō Senryaku to Chihō Jichitai: Kokusaku kara Jichi e no Tenkan wa Kanō ka’, Utsunomiya Daigaku Kokusai Gakubu Kenkyū Ronshū, 40, pp. 43–48.