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

在日本东北，有25个人口在5万到10万之间的城市。我们参观了其中的一些城市（横手市、气仙沼市、须贺川市、gosyoga原市、黑石市、久地市、釜石市、北高田市、西罗市、三泽市），并考察了市中心购物街的情况。我们的结论是：大部分这些市中心的购物街在当地城市面临着来自郊区的新购物中心的竞争，许多市中心的商店关闭了百叶窗。一些城市已经开始大力振兴市中心。其中一项政策是增加市中心的住房。另一项政策是吸引游客到市中心。日本政府目前正在举办“访问日本”活动，以提高赴日外国游客的数量。考虑到这一点，日本东北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.