Revitalization of small city's downtown shopping streets in the Tohoku district

• Project/Area Number: 18530163
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Applied economics
• Research Institution: Yamagata University
• Principal Investigator: TATEMATSU Kiyoshi Yamagata University, Faculty of Literature and Social Sciences, Professor (30107172)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): KOREKAWA Haruhiko Yamagata University, Faculty of Lterature and Social Sciences, Assoc. Prof. (40215439) ; SUNADA Hiroshi Yamagata University, Faculty of Lterature and Social Sciences, Assoc. Prof (90282194) ; SIMODAIRA Hiroyuki Yamagata University, Faculty of Lterature and Social Sciences, Assoc. Prof. (30282932)
• Project Period (FY): 2006 – 2007
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2007)
• Budget Amount: ¥2,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2007: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000); Fiscal Year 2006: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
• Keywords: downtown shopping street / hollowing-out / compact city / project to make use of vacant stores / downtown residence

Research Abstract

In Tohoku Japan, there are 25 cities of 50,000-100,000 population. We visited some of these cities (Yokote, Kesennuma, Sukagawa, Gosyogawara, Kuroishi, Kuji, Kamaishi, Kitakata, Noshiro, Misawa) and inspected the situation of downtown shopping streets. And our conclusions are as follows:
Most of these downtown shopping streets in local cities are face competition from new shopping center locating in the suburbs and many downtown stores close the shutters. Several cities has begun to put in serious efforts to downtown revitalization.
One of these policies is to increase downtown residence. And another policy is to attract tourists to downtown district. The Japanese government is currently holding the Visit Japan Campaign to raise especially the number of foreign visitors to Japan. With this in mind, a region in Tohoku Japan need to begin its effot to get foreign tourists.