Rural Revitalization and Placemaking 02 | What truly needs to be revitalized is "local government" - we cannot give up on strengthening "township capacity"

Japan's regional revitalization is one battle in an endless war

In Japan's 1990s bubble economy, it was actually the "local regions" that were hit hardest, because after the post-World War II economic miracle, local areas had grown too accustomed to relying on the leadership of large-scale planned economies. After the bubble burst, they suddenly lost their support and did not know what they could do. The abandoned amusement park scene in Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" was the background music. More than 80% of people are concentrated in metropolitan areas, and half of the population is concentrated in the Tokyo-Nagoya-Osaka corridor, making it very difficult to return to local regions.

More than 20 years ago, Taiwan began learning from Japan's comprehensive community building, and heard many stories of Tokyo people "finding their hometown/adopting a hometown." At the same time, Taiwan was no stranger to policy terms such as "regional revitalization," "agricultural, mountain, and fishing village revitalization," and "shopping district revitalization." In recent years, the term "depopulation" has been directly adopted as a commonly used Chinese term. In 2015-2016, the two Japanese TV dramas "Marginal Village Corporation" and "Napoleon's Village" not only let audiences revisit the mature charm of Takashi Sorimachi and Toshiaki Karasawa, but also pushed "the theory of local extinction" to the forefront.

Japan's regional revitalization can be said to give new contemporary meaning to the unfinished work of confronting local disintegration after the bubble economy, especially by facing the aging and declining birthrate of the population structure as a fundamental crisis.

Strengthening "township capacity" is not just politics; it is comprehensive life improvement

Taiwan always remains at the level of political flipping when facing how to strengthen "township capacity." Japan's experience in regional revitalization for township transformation offers great inspiration for Taiwan.

For example, can privately owned cars in rural areas be used as commercial vehicles for long-term care transportation services? Elderly farmers are leaving farming one after another, and their children are not taking over, so can these lands be rented and matched with people willing to cultivate them? Local brewers' skills are hard to pass on, and national research institutions are far away, so can township offices themselves organize brewer training? As more and more elderly people live alone, and when help is needed their medical record information is scattered everywhere, can complete information be established for willing elderly people, so that medical staff can swipe on a pad and immediately make appropriate judgments on site? These are all things Japan's township-level regional revitalization is working on.

Let the core thinking of regional revitalization guide local national spatial planning

Although Taiwan does not have Japan's relatively complete system, looking back at the mechanism of national resource allocation and use, the content of regional revitalization must connect with national spatial planning at the local level, including the departmental plans of county and city national spatial plans, and even plans entering the township level through overall rural area planning. Let the core thinking of regional revitalization guide local national spatial planning, and do not remain merely at political vision bubble diagrams. This is something all sectors can incubate and begin to mobilize locally as Taiwan is about to enter the first year of Taiwan-style regional revitalization.

(In order to deeply grasp rural development and regional revitalization under Taiwan's real context, "News&Market" collaborates with the "Rural Development Foundation" on the "Rural Development Special," using a series of articles to explore Taiwan's current situation and Japan's policy trends. To read the full series, please click here)