Adachi Ward: "boarded up"

[Taro Toporific]

Japan Shrinks: DIRE PREDICTIONS: Downhill slide The Asahi Shimbun / IHT June 16, 2003
Unless the demographics change, Japan's superpower status may soon be over. `In order to avoid bankruptcy, extremely austere budgets will be necessary...': Adachi Ward official ...
The streets are empty in Tokyo's Adachi Ward. Roads filled with potholes and cracked sidewalks remain unrepaired, the victims of depleted government coffers. The lights are gone in apartment buildings, their tenants long gone. Once-thriving businesses are boarded up with weather-beaten ``for sale'' signs largely ignored.
The few places that show any signs of activity are employment centers and hospitals for the elderly.
This is the bleak picture a ward office official paints for the area in 2030, if the ward's population, currently at 620,000, tumbles to about 580,000 in 2030.
Others have more dire predictions.
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FYI here's some maps of Adachi, "Gateway to Dasaitama(tm)"...

[Maciamo]

Adachi-ku is not really what I would call central Tokyo. I don't know if that phenomenon is unique to this ward, but where I live in the very center, they have repaired the road and pavement twice in less than 2 years.

A few decades ago Tokyoites left for the suburbs of Saitama, Chiba or Kanagawa prefectures. Recently the tendency has been for people to come back to the center, as falling real estate prices have made the move more affordable. Is this why Adachi-ku's people are leaving ? It's not a very convenient place to live. Areas outside Tokyo-to like Urawa, Urayasu or Funabashi are better deserved by trains and have shopping centers rivalling central Tokyo. It's rather normal that people should leave a place like Adachi-ku.