Ashio: rocks, rust and tourism on Japan's copper mountain.

With so much global attention being focused these days on the great wealth and large trade surpluses of Japan, it is easy to forget that the nation has economic problems of its own. Not the least of these is high unemployment and economic stagnation in many regions of the country. The new-found good life in Japan that one often hears about is spatially constricted, being localized mostly to the great metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, while other areas, particularly the countryside, go begging for investment and economic opportunity. Some localities are truly depressed. T