SCHRUMPFENDE STÄDTE ALS HERAUSFORDERUNG:JAPAN, HOKKAIDŌ UND DER FALL DER STADT YŪBARI

The shrinking and ageing of urban populations is a worldwide phenomenon,and in Japan it is a central problem not only for the future but already atpresent. In contrast to the large, dynamic cities of Japan, the mass of smaller citieswith fewer than 200,000 inhabitants – in particular those located outside metropolitanareas – suffer population losses due to deindustrialization and ageing. Thesituation is especially severe in areas where the economy is based on a single industrialsector, such as mining and other ‘sunset’ industries. Today’s situation inmore remote areas of Japan can be seen as an early warning of future developmentsnationwide, because – independent of deindustrialization – Japan’s populationhas been declining since 2005 and is ageing rapidly, most dramatically in remoteareas. In the first part, this paper traces the population development of Japanesecities during the periods from 1960 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2005, in order toanalyze the reasons for population decline....