The new coronavirus pandemic has shed fresh light on a raft of policy challenges confronting Japan.

One is the concentration of people in large cities, particularly Tokyo, which causes a wide range of social ills.

An infectious disease spreads wildly in areas where many people live and work. This public health disaster should be a new opportunity for Japan to embark on society-wide efforts to tackle the long-running problem of excessive concentration of people in urban areas.

Some encouraging signs of change have emerged. People who moved out of the Tokyo metropolis outnumbered those who moved to the capital for five consecutive months from July last year for a total net decrease of some 17,000 in the capital’s population, according to the internal affairs ministry.

The number represents a drop in the bucket compared with Tokyo’s population of nearly 14 million. As working from home has become commonplace, living in the overcrowded capital has become unnecessary for those involved in certain types of work.

Many people have become keenly aware that they can enrich their lives by spending the time they use for commuting on interacting with their families and neighbors or their hobbies instead.

The biggest risk from the concentration of people in urban areas is that these areas are vulnerable to natural disasters. Large-scale flooding in low-lying areas in Tokyo would force evacuations of 2.5 million people.

When powerful Typhoon No. 19 struck Japan in October 2019, authorities considered urging people in wide areas of the capital to take refuge. But officials flinched at the enormity of the logistical challenge of how to transport such a large number of people to safety.

A working group of the government’s Central Disaster Prevention Council has been discussing the issue but has yet to offer a suggestion.

It is also urgent to prepare the nation for predicted mammoth earthquakes, such as the gigantic earthquake that is predicted to occur directly under the Tokyo metropolitan area within 30 years at a probability of 70 percent and a mega-quake along the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast.

On the other hand, the dispersion of the population from large metropolises will create opportunities for surrounding cities and towns to increase the number of residents and revitalize local communities.

The city of Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, for example, has taken steps to capitalize on the spread of teleworking to reinvigorate itself. The municipal government has rolled out a program to provide up to 1.5 million yen ($14,500) in housing allowances to people moving into the city to attract corporate employees who have started working from home.

The Ibaraki prefectural government has reported a 50-percent year-on-year rise in the number of visitors to its office in Tokyo, which provides information and advice for people considering moving to the prefecture.

At their joint seminar on teleworking in August, Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures stressed good access to both the Tokyo metropolitan area and the economic sphere around Nagoya, the largest city in central Japan.

During the seminar, people who have moved to the two prefectures spoke about their experiences while the prefectural governments tried to convince the attendees that they can enjoy a more laid-back lifestyle in places rich in cultural and historical heritages if they move to the prefectures.

Most of the people moving out of Tokyo settle in surrounding prefectures. But there are clearly opportunities to adopt a high-quality lifestyle in regions farther from the capital.

In an online survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in May and June, 35.4 percent of the respondents in their 20s living in Tokyo’s 23 wards said they were significantly or slightly more interested in living in other parts of the nation. The figure for twenty-somethings living in Osaka and Nagoya or surrounding areas was 15.2 percent.  

The government should develop and implement policies to respond to the needs of such people.

Policymakers need to realize that rectifying the concentration of people in Tokyo and other major cities is the most effective way of reducing various risks and review the traditional policy approach to disaster prevention focused on infrastructure development and enhancement.

We hope broad, in-depth debate based on this viewpoint will start at the Diet, local governments and companies.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 7