Community-Building Fantasies: Why Local Revitalization Efforts Fail

Failure is not necessarily due to insufficient effort or wrong methods; the root cause may be some false illusions:

 

　　Shortly after the 2020 pandemic began, news of "population migration" to the countryside started appearing constantly. The media also promoted this with headlines, making it seem as if rural areas would flourish from then on. This kind of wishful thinking is very typical, usually a result of not looking at actual data. In fact, after the pandemic, most people moving out of Tokyo primarily relocated to the three prefectures of Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa, not the "rural areas" without resources as claimed. A closer look also reveals that the number of people moving out of Tokyo did not keep up with those moving in. This illusion has led to much misguided optimism.

 

　　Every year, a large group of people visits a certain place to study "successful cases," then lobbies the government for a budget sufficient to copy these cases, trying to implement them themselves. If they fail, they look for another "successful" case and lobby for budget again... Many places are stuck in this endless loop. This repetitive mode of operation, besides consuming budget and exhausting the youth, is fundamentally an empty, infinite cycle.

 

　　Kinoshita Hajime, an author who has been deeply involved in "regional revitalization" since high school, has published many treatises on regional revitalization. He is a recognized expert in this field in Taiwan and Japan, having published works such as "Introduction to Regional Revitalization for Dummies" (Faces, 2023), "The Battle for Regional Revitalization" (Pedestrian, 2018), "Regional Revitalization" (Fujiya, 2017), and "The Complete Guide to Regional Revitalization" (Fujiya, 2018). After countless times serving as a judge and consultant, he still sees that failures in regional revitalization or community reconstruction far outnumber successes. He decided to write this blunt book pointing out the facts, hoping that actors in this field will thoroughly understand the illusions before them. Only then will there be a chance to reverse the outcome.

 

　　This book revolves around the five major illusions categorized by the author, Mr. Kinoshita Hajime, and then elaborates on the various misconceptions arising from these illusions. The book directly names some well-known "successful cases of regional revitalization" and exposes their dark sides. Due to its outspokenness, this book has offended many people in Japan. However, its clear arguments have helped many Japanese readers finally understand how to think about these burgeoning projects.

 

　　Taiwan has many passionate and capable professionals who have been promoting regional revitalization and community building, but we also face a great many illusions. We hope that this book will serve as a benchmark, exposing the illusions that lead to failure. We hope that through this book, readers can find the motivation for their next endeavor from within these illusions.