to age rapidly in the coming years and to begin its decline sometime around 2035 (Rostow, 1998, p. 29; UNPD, 2004, p. 31)? Asia is not Europe, however, and Japan is not identical to either Europe or China. Hence, this book seeks to present shrinkage in regional Japan as simultaneously a human, a Japanese, a local, and a personal experience.
What we present to the reader is at once a single study and a collection of stories that have been woven together; our intent is to examine a phenomenon and its human response and thence to develop a cohesive narrative for regional shrinkage in Japan and beyond. The scholars included in this book have all been to, lived in, and experienced the places about which they write, and many have an interest in the fate of the people they encountered. Looking at Japan’s regions, one wonders whether shrinkage is a reality that the people in these places must accept, even embrace? Must one acquiesce and acknowledge this fate for rural regions in a globalising world? Or is there instead a different response—one of revitalisation, rebirth, and growth? Need we concede that we are using outdated dichotomies and paradigms? Should we seek not an endless cycle of growth and decline but, rather, stability and sustainability?
It is in their aggregate that these multiple narratives contribute to overall understanding. As much as one discovers in these stories simplicity and uniformity, one also finds complexity and particularity—and a mix of approaches that can be brought to bear on a range of different circumstances in the overall (but still developing) dynamic of shrinkage and revitalisation in regional Japan.
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The places that we include in this book are scattered throughout Japan. They range from Hokkaido in the far north and Aomori and Iwate Prefectures in the northern T
hoku region, to Niigata Prefecture and Sado Island, which are part of the Hokuriku region on the west coast of Thoku. Locales vary from the mountains of Kyoto, Shiga, and Wakayama Prefectures in the Kinki region to Kchi Prefecture in Shikoku, Kaminoseki Town in western Honshu’s Yamaguchi Prefecture, and the southernmost point of Japan in the Ryukyu archipelago of Okinawa Prefecture.