Hidden beneath its streets, Japan's aging sewer pipes spotlight a challenge that has held back reforms Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing to revitalize the world's third-biggest economy.
Overhauling the country's infrastructure — roads, tunnels, ports and sewage plants, many of them built after the 1970s when the construction boom started — is a looming burden on the government, whose deficit has already swollen to more than twice its GDP.
Abe's solution is to sell public assets to companies or allow firms to manage them, which he argues would also help reduce the bulging deficit and generate economic momentum and jobs.