Hiroshima Prefecture Governor Mika Yokota has revealed that working-level discussions have begun with Hiroshima City and other relevant local governments over a “secondary capital” concept — a plan to take over capital functions from Tokyo in the event of a major disaster. On 5ch, opinions clashed over whether correcting Tokyo’s over-concentration is even desirable, comparisons with other candidate cities like Osaka, Okayama, Sendai, and Niigata, and Hiroshima’s own weak points, such as poor airport access and a shortage of land.
Regarding the “secondary capital,” which would serve as a backup for capital functions in the event of a major disaster, Governor Yokota revealed that working-level discussions have begun with Hiroshima City and others.
A secondary capital would take over Tokyo’s functions if maintaining them in Tokyo becomes difficult due to a major disaster or similar event. In July, Governor Yokota indicated an intention to seek designation in cooperation with Hiroshima City and other parties. At a press conference on the 25th, Governor Yokota revealed that working-level discussions had begun with Hiroshima City and other relevant local governments, and stated her intention to move forward toward designation while gathering information from the national government and other sources.
Hiroshima Prefecture Governor Mika Yokota
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
More importantly, do something about that mystery-spec MOBIRY DAYS system lol
The MOBIRY DAYS terminals started supporting nationwide transit IC cards like ICOCA last month.
You can now get off through any door.
Though the response time is still slow.
The selection judges are also Ishin.
Do you seriously think anywhere other than Osaka is going to get picked in this situation?
>Do you seriously think anywhere other than Osaka is going to get picked in this situation?
Start with Osaka.
Get the secondary capital up and running in Osaka, get it on track,
then expand it to Fukuoka, Sapporo, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Sendai, Matsuyama, Kanazawa, and Niigata.
In the end this becomes a de facto regional-bloc system (doshusei).
No need to merge prefectures either.
Just organize regions around secondary-capital cities as hubs.
That's a much less forced approach.
Since you're not cramming everything into fixed regional blocks,
areas can belong to multiple regional blocs,
and they don't have to be bound by geographic distance.
>I thought Hiroshima said it wasn't going to run for this though
When it was 'Osaka only' as the secondary capital, people opposed it out of regional self-interest.
Now that it's 'anywhere goes' for the secondary capital, people support it out of regional self-interest.
The Tokyo bureaucratic establishment — which hates Ishin, hates Osaka, hates western Japan —
screamed 'It's Osaka or nothing!' and the moment that turned into 'anywhere can be the secondary capital,'
Pandora's box flew open lol
Guess we've entered an era of chaos at this point
Also, the lack of land is a problem, so just level the mountains to the east and west — all they ever produce is landslides anyway — and use the rubble to reclaim land from the sea.
And there are way too many rivers for no good reason, so bury all of them as giant culverts except the Ota River floodway.
You don't need to go through all that hassle — there are plenty of candidate cities that already have flat land.
>Since not having an airport near Hiroshima City is a weakness
Just use Iwakuni Airport.
It's on the coast, so it can be expanded as much as needed going forward.
It's only about 43km from Hiroshima —
roughly the same distance as the access route to Hong Kong International Airport,
so all you'd need is to set up high-speed rail access.
From Hiroshima Station to Shin-Iwakuni Station is just one stop, a mere 14 minutes.
Just extend a branch line to the airport and it becomes an airport with unbeatable access.
Making Hiroshima the secondary capital would bring infrastructure budget too,
and the secondary capital's key airport development could cross the prefectural border.
Since it's an ideal wide-area collaboration project, the budget would pass easily too.
Bottom line: a secondary capital is unnecessary.
>Hardly any countries even have a secondary capital.
>Bottom line: a secondary capital is unnecessary.
That's true for normal countries that don't have everything piled into one city the way Tokyo does.
Politics in Washington DC, economy in NYC, culture in LA.
Politics in Berlin, economy in Frankfurt, culture in Hamburg.
Politics in Canberra, economy in Melbourne, culture in Sydney.
Even in the UK, which people call over-centralized,
they set up a satellite office of the PM's residence, moving it from London to Manchester.
In France too, more people are moving away from Paris.
Even in London and Paris, only about 15% of the population is concentrated there.
By contrast, Tokyo/the greater metro area's concentration rate is 33%.
Tokyo's over-concentration is abnormal, distorted, and just plain messed up on every level.
Can't quite put my finger on why.
Anyway, setting that aside, the secondary capital should be somewhere near Tokyo.
Somewhere around Ichikawa would be good, no?
>Well, there's nothing wrong with wanting to become one
>Osaka's only getting attention because it's loud about it too
So confident, even as a siege around Tokyo is steadily forming lol
The powerful regions break free of Tokyo's control and become self-sufficient.
Tokyo's job ends up being to look after whatever depopulated areas are left.
That's the 'Oka-kyo' (a play on Okayama + "capital") you hear about in those conspiracy theories of unknown origin.
I wonder if Tottori Prefecture was evenly split between Hiroshima and Tokyo.
The real candidates would be the Kansai region, the Chukyo (Nagoya) region, Sendai, and Niigata, wouldn't they?
Kansai region? There's no way anywhere in Kansai other than Osaka would put its hand up — not with (Osaka Governor) Yoshimura watching like a hawk.
There's no way western Japan would accept Sendai or Niigata as the secondary capital — it'd start a civil war.
Thought I was looking at the elevated monorail at Tachikawa Station or something.
I'm actually from Hiroshima, but I haven't seen that yet.
I do know Hiroshima Station has changed a lot though.
Still, all the G7 leaders gathered there though.
Not much earthquake activity either.
There's still the risk of landslides and mudslides from the mountains collapsing though.
The urban expressway got built in no time though lol
Better than Okayama City, which looks cramped.
Reality is:
Okayama City has land to spare.
Hiroshima City is short on land.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “‘Hiroshima Prefecture Is Already One of the Hubs Supporting Japan’ — Hiroshima Moves Toward Becoming a Secondary Capital, Prefecture and City Reveal They’ve Begun Talks — Hiroshima Governor Yokota”.
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