Hidden Behind Tokyo: Japan's Rural Periphery

Abstract

This article extends the reader's gaze beyond the Metropolitan Core (Tokyo-Osaka) that dominates the English language literature on Japan. It is important to understand rural, small town and smaller city Japan because most Japanese do not live in the Core and most of the land area of the Japanese archipelago lies outside the boundaries of Japan's urbanized confines. There is a very different dynamic in rural and small town Japan where there has been a dramatic level of depopulation and aging and economic stagnation. In contrast, the metropolitan core is still growing, and looks prosperous and modern even after two decades of economic stagnation. To bring out distinctive features of the “other” Japan, the one hidden behind the metropolitan core, consider changes in land use, demography, the rural and small town economy, transportation, communications and architecture. The relative neglect of this topic is striking because regional Japan is both idealized as a repository of “traditions” and values while also denigrated as backward. The declining “other” has been subjected to extensive government policy interventions, but as I argue here, these frequently have been misguided. Significantly, the “other” Japan remains an important arena of identity politics in a nation that has experienced massive socio-economic convulsions in the post-World War Two era.