Think Nationally, Act Locally?

Sorry ‘bout yesterday. I couldn’t “move”... :p
I think I’ll be fine today... who knows?

Anyway, let’s get going with how the government is seeing this problem.
Some of the governmental policies for urban-rural disparity include such as synoecism and “IT-izing”, but there hasn’t been enough attention given to the desertification or decline in population in these areas that we have been discussing about.

Why not? Well, when shopping malls pop up in these places consumption goes higher and local economy boosts up... maybe not so much as to say, “boost up” but it gets richer more or less. When the economy of the local area as a whole, in numbers, is good, there is no need for the national government to cast their eyes upon.

But it is a severe issue for the rural and suburb areas, as the provincial cities for a long time in postwar Japanese society served as the center of a large society including industry, commerce and agriculture. Not only that, it was also the center of education, culture, health and welfare as well as other administrative services. Therefore when this very center loses its balance, the entire society supporting each other loses it balance. Moreover, because little things, history and tradition cultivate people’s identities and prides, so the fall of the center eventually leads to the loss of identity and the area soon becomes to look as though it is dead.

So, as a result, despite the obsession of the national government with revitalizing local economy, it doesn’t or cannot take any effective action to improve the situation.

However, situations seem to be changing slightly recently. It looks like the government realized that from the aspects of declining birth rates and aging of the population as well as financial aspects, politics have to seriously focus on switching from urban politics to local politics. Also, if they keep turning their eyes from the reality of local cities they will be too late to stop the increase of hollowing towns and villages.

So now what?
The new policy that the government came up with is called the “Compact City Plan”.

I learned that some of the EU member countries got their hands on this policy already so some of you readers may know what it’s about: it’s basically a city designing plan to make one community very small, small enough for a resident to be able walk around his neighborhood and still get everything he needs for a living.

Sadly though, it’s not functioning too well at the moment for the local communities have stretched out quite large, so large that it’s hard to even think of shrinking it again.

So is this issue ever going to be solved? Or am I ever going to reach a personal conclusion?
I guess I can’t really get to any point when it comes to huge issued like this you know, like the education stuff and suicide and disparity and all these... too big for me to even touch upon.

The future is nothing without children, the country is nothing without towns and people.
This too has become pretty long, but I think this is about the right place to stop. If I come up with some more I’ll write, but from next week I’ll get myself to something different, yeah?