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Yubari, Japan: a city learns how to die
- psgbg 12y agoAlso I would recommend amazing post http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/yubari-from-the-culture-of-coal-to-the-cult-of-caramel/ http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/yubari-from...
- bokchoi 12y agoWow, what a dick.
- packetslave 12y agoGo back to Reddit
- mgkimsal 12y agoI couldn't tell; his back was to the camera.
- arm 12y agoHe recently posted this as well: http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-into-truth/ http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-... (…darn, I just noticed the comment by taoquay).
- psgbg 12y agoYeah. I also saw taoquay's link. Thanks anyway.
- cmdrfred 12y agoThere is only 20 people there under 15, must be lonely for those kids.
- BugBrother 12y agoUh, from the article: >>barely one in 20 of the population under the age of 15 >>[the population] more than halved again, to below 10,000 So 10K/20 == 500.
- cmdrfred 12y agoI'm sorry I must of misread.
- taoquay 12y agoThe extended/uncut version of The Guardian's article can be read here: http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-into-truth/ http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2014/08/16/yubari-withering-...
- jcurbo 12y agoGlad to see a Spike Japan post make it to the Guardian. It's a really good blog and I wish it'd get published as a book or something.
- ekianjo 12y ago> Yubari has other lessons for the rust-belts of the west, too, although the lessons may be unlearnable. There’s no graffiti, no vandalism and scarcely any crime. Whole years can elapse without a single felony. This is nothing specific to Yubari. The same can be said about most small cities in Japan.
- jaksemas 12y ago>This is nothing specific to Yubari It's not implying that it's specific to Yubari. It's implying that it doesn't have the crime stats that are usual in decaying cities of the rust-belt. Comparing decaying cities of the rust-belt with an average small city in Japan wouldn't be fair. Comparing them with a decaying city on the other hand makes sense.
- ekianjo 12y agoHey even during natural disasters in japan there is no looting going around. So why would you expect graffiti and crime to suddenly occur with reduced population and unemployment ? It's just not in the culture in japan. Plus, this kind of behavior usually comes from youngsters, and there are less and less of them in Yubari so it's EVEN less likely to occur in the first place.
- Steko 12y agoAh the "no looting in Japan" myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_earthquake_store_shelves.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_earthquake_store_she... http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/03/why-no-looting-in-japan-ctd/174307/ http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2011/03/why-no... FWIW the main reason there is less looting in Japan is because they have done a better job at eliminating poverty. Here's what happened before they had done so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Riots_of_1918 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Riots_of_1918
- deciplex 12y agoThe pic on Wikipedia doesn't say much without context. You could have gone to the supermarket nearest to my apartment in the week after (I live in Tokyo) and it would have looked similar. People were definitely hoarding, but as far as I know they were paying for the stuff. Mostly, anyway. Obviously, there is going to be some looting. But, consider a previous natural disaster of approximate magnitude* which took place a few years previously on a coastal city in the US. Compare the response by the US government, the Americans there, and more broadly American society. The Japanese have something figured out that Americans have forgotten, or more probably never had. (*Not really, Tohoku was considerably worse than Katrina in magnitude and scope.)
- ekianjo 12y agoIt was an OK article, but honestly this is nothing new in Japan or anywhere else. This is not unheard to have villages dying in Europe with all youngsters leaving for the cities and better job prospects while the population ages and ultimately disappears. The matter in Japan is exarcerbated by low natality rates but the phenomenon is really, nothing new.
- jaksemas 12y ago>This is not unheard to have villages dying in Europe This is not a village, it's a city with a population of 120k falling down to 10k. A population of 120k would put it as a top-5 city in any medium-sized European country. And it is completely unimaginable that such a city would die this way (unless it were destroyed in a war).
- ekianjo 12y agoNo, I think you get the wrong impression here. This is not a city that has grown to 120k over 1000 years and which disappeared in a blink, this is a village that was overgrown because of the coal mine activity in the past 100 years, and just like in all modern countries which made the switch from coal to something else, the economic activity went somewhere else and people with it. So no, it's actually very similar to cities in northen France, West Germany and South Belgium which lived from coal as well and quickly dropped in population as well. And the same thing is happening in Detroit as the auto industry dissappeared as well. It's all the same thing at work.
- 1ris 12y agoThe coal industry in Germany mostly happened in hughe cities of the Ruhr metropolitan area, and these are far from dying. There might be small villages in eastern Germany turning into ghost towns, but this is a mostly unheard phenomenon. There is no german Detroit. Probably because there are much fewer places to move to instead.
- nl 12y ago
- notastartup 12y agoLooks like Japan's solution is to let in more immigrants or they come up with a robot at extremely low cost and low energy consumption. Japan would rather have robots than immigrants but ultimately, like immigration boom that happened in the west due to lack of indigenous population supply, foreign workers has to come.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- 1ris 12y agoI do not want to make any pro or contra immigration statement, but I think your premise is wrong. We should all get used to shrinking. We had Growth for the last centuries, if not millennia, now it looks like that has come to an end, and that is not necessary a bad thing. Japan is in this regard already living in the future, a future that will come of Europe and North America soon, and to the rest of the world a little later.
- Natsu 12y agoIt sounds pretty cheap for Japan. I wonder what it would be like to work remotely while living there? Also, it's weird, but I love the Japanese melons even though I do not like cantaloupe--they always taste rotten to me.
- girvo 12y agoFunny, I had the same thought about working remotely. But I wonder what the internet is like, and I don't think I could stand the cold all year. It'd be an interesting place for a holiday solitary retreat, a small house to go live in during the summer months and think. Explore the wilderness, write, program. It's a curious idea actually.
- justincormack 12y agoHokkaido looks rather beautiful in winter http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery.php?id=22 http://www.michaelkenna.net/gallery.php?id=22
- cageface 12y agoWhat's the visa situation for foreigners working remotely in Japan? I was under the impression that Japanese visa regulations were pretty strict and also rigorously enforced.
- aianus 12y agoHow would they ever find out?
- oftenwrong 12y agoPolice can stop you for a visa check.
- aianus 12y agoI mean they have no way to know you're working remotely instead of being a tourist.
- roberthahn 12y agoEverytime I read stories about dramatically shrinking cities I wonder if there's an opportunity to create a startup hub. The cities aren't always where the customers are, so probably the only kind of startup that would work would be tech related. If a dying city invested in great internet connectivity in one neighbourhood, offered extremely reasonable cost of living expenses (mostly cheap rent), maybe even a tax break in the first 2-3 years of your business, would you consider relocating to help keep your startup expenses down?
- avalaunch 12y agoI don't think it would work. If you're selecting a city to start a startup, as opposed to starting one wherever you already are, then ideally you're going to want a low cost of living, a high density of talent, investors, and early adopters. This option would only offer the low cost of living. If your business doesn't need to be physically near your customers, investors, or talent, then you can literally setup anywhere in the world and you'd probably be better off choosing somewhere more pleasant with an even lower cost of living.
- bashinator 12y agoAm I alone in thinking that if Japan as a society really wants people to start having more kids, it would start encouraging a normal 40-50 hour work week?