Bankrupt Mining Town Downsizes to Avoid Becoming a Ghost

Yubaris efforts called extremely important model for Japan.

Chikako Mogi Yuki Hagiwara September 26, 2016
A sleepy, former coal-mining town in northern Japan is taking
unprecedented measures to combat its biggest challenge: a
devastating shrinking of its population. Its success could decide the
future for hundreds of other local governments waging the same
battle for survival.
Since its peak in the post-war economic boom of the 1960s, the
population of Yubari, a little more than an hours drive east of Sapporo
on Japans northern island of Hokkaido, has declined by more than 90
percent to just 9,000 as older residents died and young people moved
away to bigger cities. Ten years ago, it became Japans first
municipality to declare bankruptcy.
To keep from becoming a so-called ghost townwhen a city ceases to
function due to a precipitous decline in population and is ultimately
abandonedYubari embarked on a drastic experiment. City officials
began merging schools, slashing government jobs and salaries,
halting funds for public swimming pools, toilets and parks, curtailing
services such as bus routes and snow removal, and downgrading the
local hospital to a clinic. The most drastic measure has been the
forced relocation of hundreds of residents from public housing on the
citys outskirts to blocks of new, low-rise apartments closer to the city
center.
Yubari can potentially lead the example of a real-time compact city,
said Yoshio Kurihara, senior researcher at Mitsui Global Strategic
Studies Institute in Tokyo, who called Yubaris experiment an
extremely important model for Japan. Successful results from the
citys trial can be applied on a nationwide scale.
By 2040, about half of Japans municipalities or 896 towns and cities,
will be on a course to future extinction as their numbers of women of
reproductive age drop below levels needed to sustain them, according
Japan Policy Council projections. More than 20 percent of residential
areas in Japan will become ghost towns by 2050, Japans land ministry
forecasts. And data from the National Institute of Population and
Social Security Research show a 16 percent population decline
country-wide within 25 years, with 20 percent of municipalities
experiencing a drop below 5,000 people. The compact city solution

is being considered as a model for survival by these areas facing

depopulation.
Some small towns and cities in rural prefectures have been
experimenting with merging to reduce public administration costs.
That has led to a small local government looking after a large area,
making it difficult to provide services to remote residents.

Authorities in prefectures such as Aomori and Toyama also have been

trying to implement the compact city strategy, but they have faced
strong resistance from residents to relocate even after improving
transportation and commercial infrastructure to lure people into
central areas. That makes the Yubari experiment, largely being carried
out with public support, unique.
Yubaris example can definitely be applied to other municipalities,
Kurihara said. Yubari shows what the future holds and offers hints.

Negative Reaction

Residents had initially reacted negatively to the relocation plan,

according to Tsuyoshi Setoguchi, a professor specializing in urban
planning at Hokkaido University, who was involved in creating and
implementing Yubaris compact city plan. He and his students met
with relocated residents over the course of a year to provide details of
the plan and convince them of the benefits.
Their first reaction was, We are old and are gone in 10 years so why
not leave us alone, or that to move was too tiresome at that point in
their lives, said Setoguchi, noting that a survey of a group of
relocated residents he conducted showed they gave an aboveaverage rating to their new environment. Many expressed the merits
of being able to live in an assembled community, which provided a
sense of security and helped cut costs such as heating.
Some residents complained about the environment for raising
children, with public parks suffering from funding cuts and kids having
to leave town for high school. Yet for others, a new home is an
upgrade.

Convenient Bathing
Yoneo Watabiki, 76, who spent a third of his life working at the coal
mines, said he had no qualms about leaving the public housing, made
of wood, where hed lived with his family for decades.
I am glad I moved, Watabiki said. Now I have a bath in my own
house and dont have to go to public bathhouses. I can take a shower
when I want to.
Another resident, Kiyoshi Yanagihara, 97, who moved to Yubari to
work in the mines after completing military service in 1943, said he
also enjoys having a more convenient place to bathe, as well as a
nearby food cooperative and neighbors who cook for each other.
The current residence is very comfortable compared with the
previous onelike heaven and hell, he said. I dont feel lonely
because the people Ive lived with for 20 and 30 years have all
relocated together.

Apartment houses originally built for coal miners stand in Yubari,

Hokkaido.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

More Housing
Since starting the relocation process in 2010, Yubari had moved 275
households, or 5 percent of total, as of 2015. As a result, the cost of
maintaining and managing public housing has fallen to about 70
million yen ($680,000) annually from about 100 million yen six years
ago. The plan is to construct 33 more low-rise blocks for public
housing by 2020, as well as build or renovate low-rent apartment
blocks for at least 800 workers who currently commute from the
outskirts. By 2019, the city plans a complex to potentially house
government offices, a library, a cafe, a childcare center and other
facilities.
These days, the outskirts of Yubari are dotted with vacated, decrepit
buildings. Faded billboards of old movies such as Roman Holiday
can be seen downtown near a now-deserted entertainment area
where closed cafes and karaoke bars provide a glimpse of the hustlebustle of days of old. The lively town was a coal capital in Japan, and
its population grew to 117,000 in the 1960s. Yubari has been in slow
decline over the past 50 years. The last mine closed in 1990.

Most Aged

Its 9,000 people are collectively the countrys most aged, with those
65 and older accounting for 48 percent of its residents. Yubaris
population is expected to further halve over the next 10 years.
Through cost-cutting measures, Yubari has paid back about a third of
its debt accrued through bond issuance, but still has to repay 25
billion yen by March 2027. The citys revenue has dwindled by about
two-thirds since 2009.
Yubari Mayor Naomichi Suzuki, 35, said the city is looking to tap
revenue from national resources, namely coal-bed methane from the
former mines.
Its important to balance the defensive policy of the compact city
plan with an offensive one of lifting revenue, he said in an interview.
Even though the population outlook looks grim, the citys youngestever mayor, who took office in 2011, says there are other ways to
build a successful community.
Child care is a top priority, and we are rapidly building low-rent
houses for the young, because a favorable environment for them is
key to the citys sustainability, he said. Yubaris population will likely
fall by half 10 years from now, but population isnt everything. I want
to assess by whether people feel happy remaining here.
With assistance from Chris Cooper and Katsuyo Kuwako.