recently I came across an hour long documentary of a town called 色川 in 和歌山県. Now obviously, 少子高齢化 is being very rough on Japan and Japan is not doing so hot in that regard, especially in places that are not Tokyo. However, this village with less than 500 residents is an outlier.
50% of the residents (160/320 total population) are people who moved there from outside the village, including young adults from places like Tokyo and Osaka and whatnot. The once vacant elementary school got more students and reopened. There are a decent amount of children in the village now. I’ll link the documentary here, it’s only in Japanese though. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZG3RQMrLBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZG3RQMrLBI). I want to live in a town like this. An old town that got new life.
Anyways, Irokawa is doing pretty well these days, but I wanted to know if there were other towns like this as well, or if it really is one of a kind. I wont be ready to move out there into the inaka for probably still a decade, but I was just curious to know whether there are other villages doing pretty well like this, that you guys might happen to know of? Is there a way of finding these communities? I want to join one and be a part of it. Thanks.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/16b7m7q/inaka_towns_that_are_actually_doing_decent/
5 comments
Obihiro, Hokkaido?
osaka is prospected to improve, high school tuitions to be made free, i think
Nagareyama, Chiba has been improving for a long time. Nagareyama offers many childcare benefits and facilities.
tsukuba, ibaraki. for obvious reasons.
the place you mentioned.
So many outsiders moving in that they reopened a closed school sound like an outlier case.
If you don’t go that extreme, though, there are rural communities all over Japan that are attracting transplants and immigrants in every prefecture. The ones I personally know of are Kamogawa and Isumi in Chiba, Chihaya Akasaka in Osaka, Yoshino in Nara, Daisen/Yonago area in Tottori. Those are just ones I’ve visited personally but there are many others.
As long as the given community is attracting outsiders, they have a future. There are many more other inaka communities that are *not* attracting outsiders.
Honestly the only chance these towns have is if working from home becomes ubiquitous.
There simply aren’t enough jobs in these areas, so people leave. Once enough people leave not even stuff like grocery stores or basic services can stay open.
The land is cheap and theres often still infrastructure so all you need is to fix the problem of all the jobs requiring you to commute to a big city and people will return.
…I live in Tsukuba, Ibaraki. Its been going through its own boom since the Tsukuba express was built.
Recently went to a town called Sakuragawa, Ibaraki. It is very much a small town. Its just at the beginning of a big push for renewal. The “downtown” area has a few shops just open up.
I’m hoping they can continue the push an breath some new life into the area.