“DISPERSAL-TYPE” RELOCATION INTENTIONS ACCORDING TO COVID-19 ― REALIZING RURAL DECENTRALIZATION IN THE POST-CORONA ERA ―

Abstract

 After the COVID-19 pandemic, people were expected to disperse to rural areas through development of telework and other means. In reality, however, the dispersion to the suburbs of metropolitan areas is more pronounced. In order to implement effective local residential policies, it is important to quantitatively understand the actual situation of the intention to move to the rural and suburban areas that occurred during the epidemic (hereafter, "dispersal-type" intention to move). For this study, we examined the occurrence of "dispersed" relocation intention in the three metropolitan areas under the COVID-19 epidemic, and then quantitatively compared the factors that cause the intention to move to rural areas with the intention to move to the suburbs. Results show that it was found that the higher the frequency of telework, the more likely "dispersal-type" relocation intention tends to occur, but the destination tends to be the suburbs compared to rural areas, and this newly clarified the issues of the rural residence policy centering on telework.