Miyoshi is a small city in tokushima, located in the central and super-mountainous part of shikoku, formed in 2006 by the community integration. it has varieties of outdoor activities as it has tremendous amounts of mountains, big river, waterfall, fields, and whatever except ocean. although it sounds as if it has no urban amenities, as it is a city and it has a (kind of) cbd, daily needs for residents and visitors were accessible. during a business trip to this city, while my boss was working at his hotel room, i decided to explore the city to discover it and tried to obtain my own insights into it. the business trip allowed me to stay in miyoshi for two days. so for the first day, i walked around the cbd, and for the second day, i explored its nature.
what i actually surprised was to discover this city had a really good infrastructure and built environment. as it was flourished by tabaco business, many former-business people's houses were nicely designed with udatsu, a sort of japanese traditional fire prevention wall which was used to show off owners' prosperity.
the main station had good enough access for main cities of shikoku. and the central shopping street had a nice ceilings so that pedestrians could walk easily without worrying for sudden rainfall.
yet as the pictures illustrate, there were almost no pedestrians walking on the street. there were rather many shops closing theirs shutters even during the daytime.
while i was walking, i discovered an expectable reason of city's emptiness; motorization and gigantic super market.
as the city is located in a super mountainous area, private automobile is a necessity for transportation. it is reasonable. and as everyone has his/her car, everyone has a easy access to this massive market, which provides relative convenience and probably cool urban images that locals are longing for (although it is a typical character of suburb for urbanites).
but this is also a really problematic as well. miyoshi is a shrinking city and rapidly aging. the population decline rate is like 10% in 5years. there would be many residents who wouldnt be able to drive in the very near future. what could be an outcome of these? its clearer than light, who can go to this super market? and is this market still open in XX years later??
obviously small local merchandises shut down their doors and people said there were no successors. where old people can go shopping without hesitation?? nowhere.
it would be super fun to be able to provide a wicked solution as a researcher/consultant/whatever, my whatever-ness doesnt allow me to be involved with this project regularly unfortunately, although i might be having a crazy idea that my boss or coworkers wouldnt have. for now, what i have to do from a distance is to study harder, think more by myself, work harder, and achieve something more interesting. saying and doing is two different things. lets hope i can activate my resolution somehow!
