[Insight & Opinion] Japanese Regional Cities: Is It 'Adaptation' Rather Than Decline?

At the end of last May, I visited Japan. Since it was my first visit in four years, I met acquaintances and friends and visited various places I wanted to see. I also fondly remember revisiting Kyoto, Kumamoto, and Kagoshima, where I lived for 13 years. Especially Kumamoto and Kagoshima, which I hadn’t been to in a very long time, showed very clear signs of change over the years.

Kumamoto and Kagoshima are major cities on Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese archipelago. Kumamoto, with a population of 738,000, is classified as a “designated city” under Japanese city standards, while Kagoshima, with 588,000 residents, is categorized as a “core city.”

Having lived there in the late 1990s, my visit to Kumamoto after nearly 20 years revealed that while the main shopping districts in the city center remained, most of the shops I knew had disappeared, and many long-established stores were gone. Instead of shops selling goods, restaurants and bars had increased, and chain stores had particularly proliferated. As a result, the unique atmosphere that I used to experience naturally while walking through the shopping streets was almost completely lost. Around Kumamoto Station and even at the highway bus terminal, large commercial facilities had been built, giving the impression that the city had expanded overall. When I spoke with a former student from the area, I learned that after the 2016 earthquake, dangerous buildings were demolished and replaced with new structures. Since it was a rare visit, I was also curious about the house where I had lived. It was in a neighborhood with many detached houses, accessible by tram from the city center. Some of the houses, including mine and a few neighbors’, were still standing but in poor condition and appeared uninhabited. The area saw a sharp increase in multi-family housing and parking lots. On the commercial side, many shops were closed, and the area seemed to have lost its vitality.

I had also lived in Kagoshima in the 2000s and had visited about ten years ago, so it felt less unfamiliar. However, many tall buildings had been constructed near the central station, obstructing the view of Sakurajima volcano, which used to be a symbolic landmark of the city. The main shopping streets had also lost many long-established stores and were filled with chain stores, but many vacant shops made the area seem lifeless. On the other hand, unique shops with a youthful vibe had opened in back alleys where I had never been before, giving a sense of hopeful new changes. I had lived in two different houses in Kagoshima due to moving. The first was relatively close to the city center in a mixed residential and commercial neighborhood, where vacant houses were visible and many immigrants lived, as evidenced by a Vietnamese grocery store. The second house was located further from the city center in a residential area developed in the 1970s. It was clearly unpopular, with many vacant houses. Although it seemed someone was living in my house, most of the surrounding houses appeared empty.

In both cities, while the population was rapidly declining on one hand, new buildings were being constructed competitively on the other. Due to population aging and the resulting contraction in overall consumption, including housing, financially strong companies and chain stores are leading the local economy. In this situation, countless local individuals must specialize in some way to survive. However, I do not want to label this as “decline,” as the media often does. Rather, I see it as “adaptation” to a new reality. Kumamoto and Kagoshima have long been important cities, so instead of hastily making negative predictions based on their current appearances, I hold hope for their potential. What is worrisome are the numerous “newborn” cities that have not even established such a foundation. Can they properly “adapt” to the changing reality? The answer to this question is directly linked to the future of these cities.

Robert Fauzer, Former Professor at Seoul National University