Staff writer

IZUMISANO, Osaka Pref. -- Closed shutters and modest storefronts line the street adjacent to the train station here, prompting few to so much as glance at what once was a brisk shopping district.

"There was a time when all those streets were filled with shoppers -- factory workers here and those coming all the way from other cities," says Shuzo Kurumano, director of Chuo Shotengai Jigyo Kyodo Kumiai, one of the seven cooperatives running the Izumisano shopping district.