Jan. 3 (UPI) – Japan is offering families who live in Tokyo 1 million yen ($7,500) per child to move out of the capital and into other towns and villages.
The new offer represents an increase of over 300% from the old offer of 300,000 yen. It will be introduced in April as officials try to revive areas with declining birthrates and aging populations.
The program is part of Japan’s Infrastructure Development Plan for a Digital Garden City Nation, which is aimed at regional revitalization through the promotion of relocation to rural areas by means of digitization.
Those moving also have to meet one of three conditions: employment at a small or midsize company in the area they relocate to, continuing their pre-relocation work via the Internet or starting a business in their new area of residence.
According to Nikkei Asia, relocation support was provided to 1,184 families in fiscal 2021, rising from 290 in 2020 and 71 in 2019. Officials hope that the program will help reduce pressure on public services in Tokyo, which has a population of 35 million.
The government is hoping 10,000 people will have moved from Tokyo to rural areas by 2027, it added.
…
is there any country in earth where the future is bleaker than Japan?
Death to America
Ukraine (regardless of who wins the war. Even in any realistic best case scenario it’s not gonna be fun for the people there for decades to come)
Italy. (Rotting for over a decade now, the new fashy government is concentrating on fashy LARP, the left is dead, the opposition wants nothing to change, it’s an area vulnerable to climate change, natural disaster prone)
South Korea (Japan, but somehow doubles down on most of its bad aspects. Has more potential, perhaps?)
Afghanistan (though it probably won’t get much worse than it is now, and it’s mostly peaceful now?)
Armenia (depending on Azerbaijan and Turkey’s hostility and Russia and Iran’s willingness to aid them)
I follow the press secretary for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and while shit is obviously not good under a theocratic government, natural disasters do outsize damage, and foreign aid (China particularly) is frequent and required, it’s better than American occupation. 20 years, hundreds of thousands (millions?) dead, and the guys we set up to run the place in the 80s got in power despite it
