Japan's population projected to plunge to 88 million by 2065
The population of Japan is expected to plunge to 88.08 million in 2065, a roughly 30 percent fall from the 2015 level, according to a government-affiliated research institute.
Drawing on Seattle startup revolution, Fukuoka angling to be entrepreneur hub
From the fifth-floor office of his internet startup, Kazz Watabe can see the sea bass jump in the bay as he works on his fishing website to the sound of jazz and the waves washing on the beach below. It's a scene that could be ...
Old age, depopulation decimating A-bomb-spared Kitakyushu
Few places evoke the rise and fall of Japan's industrial might than the head office of the Imperial Steel Works in Kitakyushu. The red brick Meiji Era building was the heart of the nation's first big steelworks. Now it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. Kitakyushu, ...
The latest data on land prices testify to the slow progress in the government's efforts to reverse the population exodus from rural to urban areas and achieve more balanced economic growth nationally.
The unintentional causes of 'abandonment'
Six years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the Tohoku region, leaving more than 18,000 people dead or missing, and triggering meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant that has left a deeply embedded mistrust of nuclear ...
Millennial movers revive Japanese mountain towns amid depopulation
High-speed broadband. An award-winning brewpub built with recycled materials as part of a "zero waste" mission. An artist-in-residence program. Organic pizza from a wood-fired oven. There is new life in the mountains of Tokushima Prefecture, in the neighboring towns of Kamiyama and Kamikatsu, even as ...
The hometown tax donation program is rife with problems and should be abolished.
Japan's ex-top cop spearheads campaign to boost immigration
When it comes to public safety and terrorism in Japan, nobody probably knows the situation better than Takaji Kunimatsu. The former chief of the National Police Agency dealt with a number of high-profile crimes during his career, including the 1972 Asama Sanso Incident, a hostage ...
Micro M&A advisers riding population trends to success
Boutique advisers specializing in micro mergers and acquisitions for mostly family-run firms are enjoying a boom as the aging, shrinking population puts the squeeze on Japan's small business landscape. There are no industrywide figures for deals between ¥500 million and ¥1 billion, but boutique advisers ...
The Abe administration's efforts to reduce the flow of people into the greater Tokyo area from other prefectures are not having much success.
Rural Japan's folk traditions fading as residents age
Traditions die hard in the small mountain town of Kanegasaki, whose history includes a series of battles nearly 1,000 years ago that drove an ancestor of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to leave the area for southern Japan. But as Japan ages and rural towns face ...
It's the rare economic tale that involves suicides, robots and arms dealers. Welcome to Japan, where science fiction may begin to trump economic fact in ways the global audience has yet to realize. That's not what the financial headlines suggest. As the press put 2016 ...
