Demographic Change and its Regional Implications for Municipalities in Rural and Urban Areas

Japanese prefectures and municipalities are affected by demographic change in various ways. If the pertinent forecasts of Japanese bureaucrats are to be trusted, there will hardly be any region in Japan which will be able to escape the direct and indirect effects of population decrease and the modified age structure of the Japanese population. Whereas the municipalities in the rural periphery will have to tackle the problems of keeping up public infrastructure with fewer funds and managing the shrinking process of the local economy with appropriate means, the cities in the metropolitan areas will have to cope with the question of how one should react to an increasing demand for facilities for the elderly and how urban space can be redesigned to fit the needs of elderly people. With respect to these issues, it can be assumed that many conventional solutions will not be viable due to the unique historical situation. Instead, actors on different administrative scales have to look for new strategies in fields like regional policy, regional and local business promotion, housing policy, as well as urban and regional planning. The aims of these two projects are, first, to examine which problems exist at the regional and local level and, second, to assess policy options and strategies Japanese regional and local entities have at hand to manage the challenges of demographic change.

Volker Elis examines policy options Japanese regional and local entities in rural areas have available to manage the problems by focussing on the situation of towns in the rural periphery. Ralph Lützeler complementarily analyses political strategies chosen to deal with ageing and population shrinkage in residential neighbourhoods of the Tokyo Metropolitan Region.