Revitalization of small city's downtown shopping streets in the Tohoku district

在日本东北部，有25个城市的5万至10万人口。我们访问了其中的一些城市（横手、气仙沼、须贺川、五女川原、黑石、久治、釜石、喜多方市、能代、三泽），并考察了市中心购物街的情况。研究结论如下：大部分地方城市的商业街都面临着来自郊区新购物中心的竞争，许多商业街的商店都关门了。一些城市已经开始认真地进行市中心区的振兴，其中一项政策就是增加市中心区的居住面积。另一个政策是吸引游客到市中心区。日本政府目前正在举办“访问日本运动”，特别是提高外国游客到日本的人数。考虑到这一点，日本东北部的一个地区需要开始努力吸引外国游客。

In Tohoku Japan, there are 25 cities of 50,000-100,000 population. We visited some of these cities (Yokote, Kesennuma, Sukagawa, Gosyogawara, Kuroishi, Kuji, Kamaishi, Kitakata, Noshiro, Misawa) and inspected the situation of downtown shopping streets. And our conclusions are as follows:Most of these downtown shopping streets in local cities are face competition from new shopping center locating in the suburbs and many downtown stores close the shutters. Several cities has begun to put in serious efforts to downtown revitalization.One of these policies is to increase downtown residence. And another policy is to attract tourists to downtown district. The Japanese government is currently holding the Visit Japan Campaign to raise especially the number of foreign visitors to Japan. With this in mind, a region in Tohoku Japan need to begin its effot to get foreign tourists.