2004 Volume 3 Issue 2 Pages 39-42
The decline of specific local industries together with the dual effects of depopulation and an aging society have led to a loss in many rural areas of economical and social vigor. In an attempt to redress this situation, many regions in Japan are trying to develop a variety of enterprises aimed at regional reactivation and regional promotion. In recent years, many regions have been making active use of the Internet to transmit information about their local areas, making it much easier for people to obtain local information on other areas outside their own. This dissemination of regional information has led in turn to many cases of interchange between residents of regions with different characteristics. In this study, I look at one such interchange between local residents in different regions, the example of the town of Takashima in Shiga Prefecture, which is engaged in a regional promotion scheme through urban area and farm village exchange enterprises, and try and grasp its defining features.
