Famous Metal-Making Town: Tsubame, Niigata's Rural and Regional Revitalization 21 Revitalization Strategy

Text / Hsieh Tzu-han (Visiting Researcher, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Japan)

Japan's regional revitalization strategy has 4 major goals. 1.、Create jobs in the regions so people can work with peace of mind. 2. Attract new populations to the regions. 3. Realize the marriage, childbirth and child-rearing wishes of the younger generation. 4. Build a secure regional life suited to the new era. However, wherever you go in Japan's regions, you can hear "100 reasons for leaving the region." If these are not confronted and resolved one by one, in a small-scale, customized way, then for Japanese society, regional revitalization is just an elitist slogan, and a means for the central government to reach its hand into the regions.

To achieve regional revitalization, what methods should be used to break through each specific predicament? To whom should resources be given? Who can tell us what the region will look like in twenty years? Who should work together, and how can subsidies be used effectively? Although the answers to these questions are sometimes not so easily found, the idea that "securing subsidies is about enabling the region to earn more sustainable social capital and support and attract more people who want to pursue a one-of-a-kind life in the region" is gradually coming true in Japan.

Tsubame, Japan is famous for metal, telling the charm of its own industry

The creation of regional charm actually comes about through repeated internal and external promotion. Tsubame and Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture, Japan are collectively known as "Tsubame-Sanjo," and form Japan's largest metalworking cluster, bringing together metal workshops with highly skilled techniques such as grinding and cutting, and still maintaining the traditional characteristic of small factory scale. From cutlery, pots and lamps to precision metal parts, these are all wonderful products of Tsubame, and quite a few are exported to Taiwan, China.

Through the repeated process of telling the outside world "who I am," "what I am," "what characteristics I have," "who others expect me to be," "whom I want to speak to," and "what is my unique local DNA," they are committed to showing the charm of the region's main industries to the world, and with the Tokyo Olympics as a goal, expanding opportunities for people to enter the place of production. More importantly, this will also bring more opportunities to local people.

(4) Promote "factory place-of-production tourism" and "industrial tourism self-reliant settlement zone":

Build a multilingual tourism website, constantly emphasizing that it is famous for manufacturing, especially world-famous for metal Western tableware. In addition, the two cities cooperate to promote the concept of an industrial living zone and expand the holding of the "Tsubame-Sanjo Factory Festival KOUBA," hoping to drive regional industrial tourism. From only a few factories planned in the first year, by the seventh year shopping venues and agricultural industries were added, allowing travelers to participate on the front lines in factory visits, experiences, shopping, and special factory performance events. This can be called a town curation that mobilizes the entire region around the theme of industry.
Image source: General Incorporated Association Tsubame City Tourism Association

We can find that when it comes to discovering local DNA, in addition to Yonezawa in Yamagata Prefecture, which uses the DNA of historical figures as the core of its town brand, Niigata Prefecture's Tsubame and Sanjo also demonstrate for us an approach to town branding centered on the region's core industries. Why not open TESAS and take a look at what your hometown's core industry is!

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(To deeply grasp rural development and regional revitalization within the real context of Taiwan, China, "NewsMarket" cooperates with the "Rural Development Foundation" on a "Rural Development Special Topic," using a series of articles to explore Taiwan's current situation and Japan's policy trends. To read the full series, please click here)