Martin Sustrik

In 2014, the Japanese government initiated location normalization plans to designate areas for concentrating hospitals, government offices, and commerce in walkable downtown cores.

Tax incentives and housing subsidies were offered to attract residents.

By 2020, dozens of Tokyo-area municipalities had adopted these plans.

Cities like Toyama built light rail transit and tried to concentrate development along the line, offering housing subsidies within 500 meters of stations.

The results are modest.

Between 2005 and 2013, the percentage of Toyama residents living in the city center increased from 28% to 32%.

Meanwhile, the city's overall population continued to decline, and suburban sprawl persisted beyond the plan's reach.

What about the water pipes?

In theory, they can be decommissioned and consolidated when people move out of some neighborhoods.

At places, they can possibly be replaced with smaller diameter pipes.

Engineers can even open hydrants periodically to keep water flowing.

But the most efficient of these measures were probably easier to implement in the recently post-totalitarian East Germany, with its still docile population accustomed to state directives, than in democratic Japan.

and then there's the problem of abandoned houses.

The arithmetic is brutal.

You inherit a rural house valued at 5 million yen on the cadastral registry and pay inheritance tax of 55%, only to discover that the actual market value is 0 yen.

Nobody wants property in a village hemorrhaging population.

But wait!

If the municipality formally designates it a vacant house, your property tax increases sixfold.

Now you face half a million yen in fines for non-compliance and administrative demolition costs that average 2 million yen.

You are now over 5 million yen in debt for a property you never wanted and cannot sell.