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Towards Livable Communities in Japan? Population Decline and the Changing Context of Place-making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Andre Sorensen
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A major question for the future of the environment of Japan – understood here both as natural environment and living environment – is whether pressures of population decline will prompt a more general adoption of quality-of-place and quality-of-environment strategies for local place making and place survival. A combination of very low birthrates (common to most developed countries), and an unwillingness to allow large-scale immigration (in which Japan is the exception among developed countries) means that Japan is the first large developed country in the world to face massive and imminent population decline. As discussed below, total population is expected to decline by about 28 million, to 100 million by 2050, and the proportion of the elderly will increase dramatically. Overall population decline and ageing will change the context of place-making greatly, as competition for both residents and inward investment intensifies. The impacts of these pressures on local environmental governance approaches will have major consequences for the future of the Japanese settlement system and the Japanese people. This article explores the possibility that population ageing and economic decline may be creating conditions in which Japanese local governments intensify efforts towards more livable cities with a high level of environmental amenity and quality of local services.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , e27
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

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