An increasing number of local public housing corporations are on the brink of insolvency due to declining land prices, threatening to deal a serious blow to already fragile regional economies.
Three prefectural governments -- Hokkaido, Nagasaki and Chiba -- gave up efforts to revive their housing corporations and let them go bankrupt.
"I was appalled at the far lower-than-estimated market price of the real estate held by the corporation," Chiba Gov. Akiko Domoto told a press conference Feb. 3, announcing her decision to give up the idea of letting the local housing corporation try to rebuild itself.