Japan's rural renaissance: Philip Lowe and Kayo Murakami look at the emerging trend towards...

IN JAPAN there is a growing interest in the future of their smaller towns, and among planners there is a particular interest in learning from the experience of other countries about the revitalisation of smaller towns and their role in rural and sub-regional development.

Japan has a

rather skewed urban hierarchy and rural geography. Some 70 per cent of the country's 125 million people live in a succession of mega-cities that occupy the southern coastal plains of central Japan, stretching between Tokyo and Kyushu. Some 70 per cent of the national territory is mountains, bisected by river valleys, and beyond the eastern coastal plains the population live in a series of small towns and regional cities strung throughout the valleys and along the coast. The rapid urbanisation of the post-war years--the so-called Japanese miracle left these rural regions as backwaters of stagnation and decline. The young and ambitious migrated to the big cities. Now there is interest in promoting rural development based on a renaissance of the small country towns.

This is part of a wider re-assessment ha Japanese society--following ten years of economic recession--of the viability of the post-war economic model. Under that model Greater Tokyo was the engine of growth, and it sucked in people and resources. The recession has particularly let the economy of Greater Tokyo and the big industrial conurbations; and, alongside criticism of tire political and business elites for their handling of the crisis, there has been a search for alternative models of growth and development that are less Tokyo-centred. This has encouraged a new appreciation of the regions of Japan and a new interest in encouraging local economic development.

The revival of interest in the small country and coastal towns actually began during the bubble economy of the 1980s and early 1990s. The influence of the frenzied consumerism and investment boom of that period spread everywhere. Tire rediscovery of the rural regions of Japan was a part of urban consumers' seemingly insatiable desire for novel experiences--but was also a reaction to it.

The national railways ran a campaign entitled 'Discover Japan'. Funding under the Depopulation and Revitalisation Law shifted from building rural roads and other physical infrastructure towards support for the cultural heritage and tourism development. New hotels and visitor attractions were built and existing facilities were upgraded. A younger clientele was attracted to visit the countryside, for weekends and for holidays, for leisure, and for business entertainment. At the same time, there was a revival of interest in traditional cuisines and the great diversity of local food products on which they draw.

Much of this interest has survived the subsequent recession, amid a sense that it is important for Japanese society to re-establish its roots. Some towns, though, have an air of neglect. For others, the investments in facilities and quality accommodation of the 1980s and early 1990s have carried them through, and they have benefited from the reduced ability of Japanese tourists to travel abroad. Japanese consumers remain obsessed with the quality of their food, its preparation, and presentation. They have a strong interest in fresh, locally grown food. Although open to many influences, they have resisted the Americanisation of their food culture.

Part of the efforts of tire central government to re-invigorate the economy has been to invest in regional infrastructure, particularly train, road, and telecomlnunication links that are making regional centres ever more accessible. There has also been 30 years of steady centrally funded investment in public infrastructure and facilities in the rural towns and villages under the Depopulation and Revitalisation Law, first passed in 1970. Even small isolated settlements in the mountains now have good internet connections.

While local infrastructure in rural regions has thus improved, the social and economic pull of the conurbations has also diminished with high levels of unemployment in the conurbations and the emergence of problems such as urban homelessness. Indeed, some urbanites have been prompted to return to their home towns, where housing is typically a lot cheaper and much more spacious than in the conurbations. Car ownership levels in rural areas are also high, and rural roads do not suffer the chronic congestion of urban areas.

At the same time, the small towns and rural areas face their own threats and challenges. Low- and medium-tech manufacturing employment is deserting Japan for lower-wage destinations in China and South East Asia. Public services are gravitating from smaller settlements to regional centres. The population profile of Japan is ageing much more rapidly than that of other Western societies (by 202S, 28 per cent of the population will be over 65), and this is most marked in rural areas. Finally, Japan has a particularly small-scale agriculture, whose structure is threatened by trade liberalisation. These challenges mean that the small towns and rural regions must look to their own intrinsic strengths and make the most of whatever social, cultural, and natural assets they possess.

The assets for endogenous development in rural Japan are especially rich. No doubt this partly derives from its particular history. It is an ancient civilisation, with a sophisticated culture. Yet between the early 17th century and tire late 19th century it was practically closed to the outside world. The country's subsequent opening up and dash to Westernise and modernise has been spectacular in both its achievements and failings. Throughout the highs and lows of modernisation, however, Japanese society has not lost sight of its own unique cultural heritage. And it is in the rural areas that this cultural heritage is most strongly preserved.

The resources on which rural development can draw include an array of traditional skills and cultural assets, including:

* meditative arts, ranging from Zen to garden design;

* decorative arts, ranging from calligraphy to flower arranging;

* craft skills, ranging from washi (papermaking) to ceramics;

* martial arts, ranging from judo in archery;

* performing arts, ranging from traditional music to kabuki; and

* hospitality skills, ranging from local festivals to the tea ceremony.

The natural and landscape assets are considerable, too, including snow-capped mountains, thickly wooded hillsides, hot springs, neat orchards, and elaborately stepped paddy fields. The small towns include traditional buildings, inns, and temples and shrines, and contrast sharply with the high-rise modernism of Japan's conurbations. Finally, there is a great diversity of food specialities and delicacies based on local traditions of processing (including curing and fermenting) various fruits, vegetables, rice, fish, and shellfish.

Critical to the success of individual towns has been the nature of their civic and business leadership and their social cohesiveness. The social structure of most of the towns and their hinterlands is rather traditional. Although some towns have attracted an artistic, bohemian, or spiritual-seeking element, there has not been the large-scale counterurbanisation and urban-rural retirement migration that has so transformed much of the countryside of Western Europe. The farming structure in particular is frozen in time. Business and civic elites often overlap, and the ownership of family businesses often goes back several generations.

In many Cases, the value of private capital--say, the ownership of a hotel, an inn, a gaff shop, a restaurant, a ski resort, or a food processing plant--is dependent on the area's collective territorial capital, and vice versa. For example, the owner of a hotel in a spa town has a strong interest in the management of the public bathing houses, where visitors go to bathe in the hot spring water. The owner of a craft shop is concerned for the maintenance and promotion of a Buddhist temple that attracts visitors to the area. The owner of a traditional chestnut confectionery is interested in the local landscape of chestnut orchards, not only as the source of his raw materials but also to give a strong local identity to his product.

Business owners thus have an enlightened self-interest in the amenities, the culture, and the landscape of their town. As heads of established families they are also used to exercising local civic and commercial leadership. Typically, rural businesses are thus deeply embedded in local social networks, and areas that have trot succumbed to heavy depopulation have strong reserves of social capital to draw upon. This is invaluable when mobilising local communities in collective action--say, in mounting a local festival, managing territorial assets and amenities, or co-operating to promote the locality.

The downside may be some conservatism and an inward-lookingness. Japanese society in general is deferential to the old and still looks to men to lead in business and public affairs. These tendencies are pronounced in the small towns and rural areas--their business and civic leadership predominantly comprise older men. Although imbued with a strong sense of social responsibility and group loyalty, they may be out of touch with contemporary social realities or the changing commercial world. However, they have to be active in repositioning their towns in relation to changing market circumstances and consumer trends, and responsive to the social needs of their communities. This is the only way to ensure continued economic and social vibrancy.

Various towns are pursuing different means to make sure that they are in touch. These include setting up community enterprises, drawing younger people into the traditional structures that manage collective assets, and bringing in outsiders to advise on such issues as new marketing strategies, community development, and contemporary approaches to civic design in keeping with local aesthetics. The central government has sought to encourage such development initiatives based on local partnerships. It is exploring a LEADER-type funding programme, and the Depopulation and Revitalisation Law now emphasises 'JIRITSU-SOKUSIN', which means empowerment for self-sustainability.

Japanese agriculture faces its own particular challenges. It has been heavily protected and subsidised. This has meant little structural change in the past 40 years. The result is a small-scale agriculture--the average holding is 1.6 hectares--that is fundamentally uncompetitive. There are strong pressures, in the context of world trade talks and the opening up of the Japanese economy to international competition, to liberalise the agricultural sector. This, it is feared, will drive many people out of farming, although the diversity of the rural economy should help buffer the impact. There are some 3 million farm households in the country, but only a fifth of the farmers are full-time; and off-farm income averages approximately 80 per cent of total faint household income.

The Japanese Government is reforming its agricultural support systems to make them more compatible with World Trade Organisation rules, including a shift from price supports to direct payments to producers. A key change was the introduction in 2000 of a system of payments to farmers and farming communities in less favoured areas (LFAs), which was partly modelled on European Union practice. LFAs cover two-thirds of tire national territory and just over 40 per cent of farmland and farm households. The purpose of the LFA payments, which vary according to farm land type and incline, is to combat land abandonment, promote diversification, and support the multi-functionality of agriculture (rice production plays a critical role in water management in hilly and mountainous areas).

About half the LFA payments go direct to the individual farmers, but the rest goes to the farming communities. In this divergence from the EU model, municipal authorities apply for funding in accordance with the identifiable needs of their local farming communities, and pass the money on to the parish councils to spend on cooperative projects to maintain farmland and collective infrastructure (such as water management) and develop alternative enterprises and employment. The sorts of economic projects promoted include joint processing and marketing activities, new co-operative sidelines such as honey production and the growing of edible flowers, the promotion of organic farming and craft food production, and support for the provision of tourist accommodation.

Once again, what is so striking is the way local collective action is being mobilised in the pursuit of rural development.

Philip Lowe is based at the University of Newcastle and is Director of the UK Research Council's Rural Economy and Land Use Programme. Kayo Murakami is a Research Fellow at Waseda University in Tokyo.