Vitality of Japan’s municipalities amid population decline

Abstract

The study of urban systems encompasses understanding both the connecting relationships between each town or city as well as specific urban characteristics. Following the method of BBSR (2012), I analyzed the vitality of municipalities in Japan using seven criteria, including population fluctuation rates (2010–2015). “Vital” cities, as opposed to “growing” cities, are municipalities with four or more criteria with values equal to or higher than the highest 20%. Similarly, declining municipalities are those with four or more criteria with values at or below the lowest 20%, and cannot be said to be shrinking cities when the population is in decline due to low birth rates rather than deindustrialization or globalization. Vital cities consist of many large cities with higher-order urban functions, wholesale and retail workers, and financial strength, whereas declining municipalities are small cities and other municipalities with <30,000 inhabitants. These mostly have high population aging rates. While manufacturing industry is normally an important activity for municipalities with 10,000–100,000 inhabitants, it is not related to vitality. Vital cities are largely concentrated in three metropolitan areas—Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya—with the exception of the area surrounding Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture. There are also many vital cities in the areas surrounding regional central cities, such as Fukuoka and Sendai. There is a relatively smaller concentration of vital cities near central Osaka and Sapporo. Many of the declining municipalities consist of depopulated municipalities and so-called shometsu-kanosei toshi (cities that may disappear in the future). These are also distributed across remote areas of the country, particularly in non-merged small municipalities. There are no vital cities in the prefectures of Akita, Wakayama, and Kochi, including the prefec-tural capital cities. The vitality of urban systems in these prefectures appears to already be strongly impaired.