http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05gap.html?hp
“We don’t want to fight, but we are desperate,” said Seiji Yanagihara, an official with the Noshiro Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the mall. “Tokyo is eating all the goodies, and not even leaving us with scraps from the table.”
This is not a pattern unique to Japan
you see in many centralized countries, in Argentina they pump huge sums of cash into the posh residential areas of Buenos Aires leaving the other regions starving. In Britain London's business districts get huge government attention while the Bradford and Leeds are thrown a few bones. In the States they got past this centralization business for a while by turning New York in the financial Capital of America and California the media and bread basket of America while Washington remained the political Capital. However America is not the best model of economic success, both the Democrats and Republicans have blown money on wasteful projects and the deficit has been going out of control with this war on terror shit.
Anyhow getting back to this topic, the analysts say the population of Japan have seen a recession the past years
and it numbers might be in decline but driving through most of Tokyo you wouldn't think it, it got the face lift, it has the boob job and it looks vibrant and great on the outside. Tokyo looks happening and each few days another ten thousand or so people start migrating from the smaller cities into Tokyo look for new accommodation or work. However the larger numbers of people put more pressure on Tokyo's services and infrastructure. Tokyo might look good on the outside but if you've ever visited some of the smaller towns in Japan you can see how some of them got sucked dry by the Economic slump. I've always been hearing from Japanese politicians how they were going to de-centralize Japan, move a lot of the businesses, gov offices etc away from Tokyo and to give some of the other Japanese regions more jobs.
However after all these years I have never ever seen it happen, is anyone going to go out and just do this de-centralization thing ever !!?? - or is it all just a stunt to get votes !?
