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The story
An article in which Teikoku Databank used foot-traffic data to test the theory that “young people are abandoning Shibuya” drew a wave of reactions on 5ch’s News Express+ board. Posters pointed to specific patterns, like young people from the Saitama direction bypassing Shibuya entirely for Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, or Koshigaya Lake Town, and argued that Tokyu’s redevelopment is turning the area into an office district no longer geared toward young people. Others countered that the station area and Center-gai are still packed with people, so the thread was split on whether the “Shibuya exodus” is really happening. Comparisons noting that Omotesando and Yoyogi have kept their calmer atmosphere also became a talking point.
Is the “Youth Exodus from Shibuya” Real? Foot-Traffic Data Reveals a “Tale of Two Shibuyas”
Mon, Sep 21, 7:04 AM JST
Teikoku Databank
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Though it's packed with tourists on weekends.
Perfect for a bit of morning exercise.
If anything, those are the only times anyone's actually there.
> "Young people these days don't hang out in Shibuya," "the exodus from Shibuya is progressing"
Well yeah, that's literally just young people leaving Shibuya.
Looking at the data, the point was that there are plenty of young people there, but they're split geographically from the older crowd.
It's basically just kids who got bored of Harajuku wandering over. It's not even really a destination people set out for anymore.
They're there, but only around the station and Center-gai, I'd say.
Empty even though it's in Shinjuku's Kabukicho… The current state of Tokyu's 'Kabukicho Tower' turning into a ghost building (by Kazuki Tanigashira) | Money Gendai | Kodansha
s://gendai.media/articles/-/154251?imp=0
Maybe it'll get bought out by Chinese capital again, like Ginza Nowa (a Ginza building bought up by Chinese investors).
Today's Tokyu buildings probably just have terrible pedestrian flow.
Chiima were a late-90s thing, lol.
Even less reason to go there now.
Seriously? lol
I failed the part-time job interview at the Shibuya Tower Records once (´･ω･｀)
Young people from Saitama used to ride the Saikyo Line straight into Shibuya. Now they just get off at Ikebukuro.
I get that, lol. Even when they go further, it's only as far as Shinjuku. They don't bother with Harajuku or Shibuya.
Some of them just head to Koshigaya Lake Town (a big suburban mall) instead. They don't go to Shibuya at all.
If they're bringing in Google, it's probably a plan to remake the whole town. No point lowering the rent—only their own circle gets to move in anyway.
This 'Greater Shibuya' concept they're pushing is really about sorting people and companies. They'll just keep remodeling it into a town with ever-higher rents and salaries.
All those 'insiders' already got snapped up by the Hills developments (Mori Building's Roppongi Hills-style office towers), lol.
Isn't that basically impossible in Shibuya? Land prices are so high that developers end up chasing returns on their investment.
Apparently there are places like that out in the suburbs, or so I've heard—don't know the details. Not sure how it is along the Tokyu lines either.
'Invest and keep it simple' is a tough combo to pull off. Marunouchi's probably one of the better examples of it actually working?
I think it's the renovated station's fault. If you have a drinking party in Shibuya and get wasted, you don't feel like you can even find your way home anymore. Used to be you could say your goodbyes and be on the train 30 seconds later. Also apparently the rats have multiplied like crazy, which doesn't help either.
Yoyogi has a good kind of messiness to it. Though honestly the only place I go there is Books Kinokuniya (the foreign-language bookstore).
I mean, I don't go near Shinjuku unless I actually have business there.
Why Ikebukuro and Ueno, though?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Around Shibuya, Tokyu’s large-scale redevelopment continues to push forward, with the area increasingly shaped for office workers—including efforts to attract Google’s offices—while others point out that rents are too high for most companies to move in at all. On top of an overall shrinking youth population, redevelopment around Shibuya Station has made transfers more complicated, and some say it’s become less convenient to casually drop by than it used to be. The thread repeatedly pushed back on the simple idea that “there are no young people in Shibuya”—people still gather around the station and Center-gai, even as areas like Omotesando and Yoyogi stay calmer, showing the picture varies a lot by neighborhood. One poster’s account of young people from the Saitama direction stopping at Ikebukuro suggests destinations may simply be scattering depending on which train line people ride.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Youth Exodus from Shibuya] Is It True? Foot-Traffic Data Reveals a ‘Tale of Two Shibuyas’”.
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