FUKUOKA -- A long feature on Fukuoka in a recent issue of Toyo Keizai magazine examined three different areas that represent development in the city. Two of these, the reclaimed land of Momochi, and the city's historic Kawabata area, have seen much growth in the last 10 years, boosted by giant government-funded ventures.
In contrast, the third area, young, cosmopolitan Daimyo is booming from the overflow of the department-store wars in nearby business center Tenjin. Daimyo is a chic little enclave just west of Tenjin only 500 x 500 meters in size, often described as being what Jiyugaoka is to Tokyo, while Tenjin is equivalent to Shibuya.
Because Fukuoka is the economic core of the dynamic Kyushu-Yamaguchi region, its internal cores also generate high earnings. A survey by Nishi Nippon Bank showed that shoppers in their teens and 20s spent over 40,000 yen in a day at Daimyo -- twice that age group's average spending for the whole city. Statistics in 1999, released by Nishi Nippon Shimbun newspaper, revealed shopping as the number one attraction for nearly 40 percent of visitors to Fukuoka -- far outstripping those who came for weddings and functions (20.2 percent), sports and cultural events (17.6 percent) and even business (4.2 percent).