People and Money Concentrate in the Five Central Wards of Tokyo…The Reality of a “Tokyo Independence Movement

Infrastructure renewal will also increase.

To make matters worse, social infrastructure renewal such as roads, bridge piers, and water and sewage systems will also increase in the future. If we have to run electricity, water lines, and guardrails all over the country, we will always be underfunded, and we will never feel a sense of wealth. And the demands for airports, bullet trains, highways, stadiums, and concert halls are endless. Inbound travel and tourism also have their ups and downs and cannot be counted on.

Rural living and immigration booms are good, but we should rather promote migration from underdeveloped areas to urban centers, prohibit new development and infrastructure investment in underdeveloped areas, and separate where people live from where they do not live.

The author has visited more than 60 countries around the world. In foreign countries, when traveling by car or train from town to town or village to village, one comes across a landscape with no houses or buildings at all. I am sure some of our readers have experienced this.

On the other hand, if you visit all 47 prefectures of Japan, you will never see an end to the number of houses and streets. Every country in the world, with the exception of Japan, has uninhabited areas, nature conservation areas, and other places that have been daringly left untouched. Check out the map. Even very few countries, such as Singapore and Qatar, where the World Cup soccer tournament will be held, have uninhabited areas. Only Japan. It is not like the popular TV show “Potsun to Hate Houses,” but there are houses everywhere, and the infrastructure is maintained in every corner of the country using taxpayers’ money.

While creating places where people do not live and where nature remains intact, we invest heavily in places where people live and where they develop. By “selection and concentration,” this means being selective in rural areas while investing more aggressively in infrastructure in the capital, Tokyo, and elsewhere.

When Tokyo residents’ “dissatisfaction” explodes

Tokyo’s infrastructure is fragile, with overcrowded commuter trains and congested roads. Taxes and profits earned and collected by corporations and individuals, who spend three hours round-trip on crowded and inferior trains, are being disbursed to make up for deficits in the local regions, both public and private, through subsidies and infrastructure improvements. Of course, there is nothing wrong with making the regions richer, but the question is where the money is coming from and whether it is sustainable.

If things continue as they are, the people of Tokyo may soon rise up and start a movement for Tokyo independence in Japan, just as they did in Italy, when the people of Milan and other affluent northern regions refused to bear the burden of the slow-developing southern regions.

Local Shakeouts Are Not Always a Bad Thing

Even in times of emergency, local governments’ finances are also deteriorating rapidly due to the loss of tax revenues caused by the COVID-19 crisis and the expansion of budgets for benefits, subsidies, and other measures to combat COVID-19. In the future, many local governments will follow the path of declining population, declining industry, declining tax revenues from individuals and corporations, inadequate infrastructure development and social security spending, population outflow, further depopulation, and financial collapse.

In the end, the selection and elimination of local governments themselves will likely proceed even further.

However, the selection and elimination of local governments will also lead to the consolidation of wasteful public works projects and infrastructure development, which in turn will enable users and residents to receive better products and services. From the macro perspective of the Japanese economy as a whole and from the perspective of improving individual incomes and living standards, the selection and elimination of rural areas is not necessarily a bad thing.

The concentration of Japan’s economy in Tokyo will continue. As the selection and elimination of local regions continues, which regions will survive in the future?