Earlier this month, the government pledged for the zillionth time to "revive" Japan's "regions." Local governments are in danger of vanishing in coming decades due to depopulation, and former Liberal Democratic Party No. 2 Shigeru Ishiba was put in charge of the regional revitalization ministry, which, considering Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's reported enmity toward his fellow LDP bigwig, may indicate how un-serious he is about the issue.

In any case, proposals to help municipalities re-create their economic bases will likely be retreads of ideas that have failed repeatedly in the past. If they hadn't, there wouldn't be a need to form a ministry to deal with the problem, but that hasn't stopped the ruling party from setting up committees to study these ideas anew, because it likes nothing better than a grand scheme it can manage from the safe, lofty heights of the capital.

On Oct. 18, the Cabinet Office released the results of a nationwide survey about Tokyo's ikkyoku shūchū (over-concentration). Forty-eight percent of respondents thought such a phenomenon was "bad" for the country, and 47 percent said they were "worried" about the future of the area "where they now live." Actually, the Cabinet Office could have saved money. If it wants to know how people outside Tokyo really feel about the city, it just has to pick up some regional newspapers, which are filled with articles blaming the capital for all their woes.