Residents in Tokyo's Harumi seafront district sometimes have to put up with the rather ignominious joke that their neighborhood is a "lonely island" cut off from the capital's bustling center.
"Geographically speaking, it's actually quite close to Ginza," says Chiyoko Kanno, principal of the JCQ Bilingual Preschool in Harumi. "But people who don't live here aren't familiar with the local transportation. So although it's situated within Tokyo, many experience difficulty getting here."
Tokyo's triumph in the race to host the 2020 Olympics earlier this month, therefore, has been widely celebrated by locals as a harbinger of a dramatic transformation for their neighborhood, where the Olympic Village is slated to be built.