What Can Be Done Before a Municipality “Disappears”: Making the Best of Negative Municipal Resources

Kumagai, Fumie

This chapter reiterates that the overall population of Japan continues to decline, although some municipalities have been successful in their community revitalization efforts. The reason some municipalities are successful may come from a realization of their municipal power. The Regional Revitalization Law of 2014 certainly facilitated municipalities in examining their demographic situations, and to realize their municipal power. However, it is questionable how much municipal power has been taken into consideration in community revitalization. Let us reiterate then, the very first step for regional revitalization is to realize its own municipal power, be it positive or negative. In the era of the so-called Society 5.0 , this chapter explores some successful cases of community revitalization through the active use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) programs. We pay close attention to successful application of community building, such as drones, the Internet of Things (IoT), open data, cloud service, crowdfunding, inbound tourism, and economies-sharing. We come to realize that modern ICT programs can help, but communities’ determination to assess their municipal power, both strengths and weaknesses, is of most importance. We must admit that there are some unresolved issues in the study. We are most willing to set them as essential themes for the future research of community revitalization in Japan. At this point we can point out two essential unresolved issues for future research. First, we emphasized municipal power such as marriage power, household type, and economic indicators for the population-sustaining power of municipalities. However, in our future research we need to explore other aspects of municipal power, to allow the pursuit of regional revitalization more effectively. Although it is difficult to measure, we need to tap on the subjective dimension of people who facilitate community revitalization. Second, we have made deliberate efforts in taking the Goki-Shichido, particularly its provinces, as our theoretical framework to examine regional differences in municipal power, especially within the same prefecture. We were successful in examining such prefectures as Tokyo and Aichi of the Tokaido region, Aomori and Yamagata of the Tosando region, Osaka of the Kinai region, Shimane of the Sannindo region, Kochi of the Nankaido region, and Fukuoka of the Saikaido region. Nevertheless, we need to test municipal power in other prefectures within the prefectural variations, such as Nagano of the Tosando, Shizuoka and Mie of the Tokaido, Hiroshima of the Sannyodo, and Fukui, Ishikawa, and Niigata of the Hokurikudo. Only if we know these prefectural, the Goki-Shichido, and provincial variations can we say that taking the Goki-Shichido as our theoretical framework for regional variation is validated. We believe, however, our studies on Municipal Power and Population Decline in Japan: Goki-Shichido and Regional Variations are significant in shedding light on an unexplored field. One effective strategy in fighting the problem of Japan’s declining population would be to bring foreign workers into the municipality. An example is Izumo-shi in Shimane Prefecture. The city successfully implemented the Multicultural Symbiosis Promotion Plan to settle foreign workers with Family Stay status into the municipality. The implementation of such a plan seems simple, but is difficult to achieve. Izumo-shi, however, has proved that getting foreign workers settled in the municipality, with their families, would be one of the most effective strategies for population decline.