[JP] Cattle farms or bullet trains?

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Eurorapid
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[JP] Cattle farms or bullet trains?

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Cattle farms or bullet trains? Japanese village faces uncertain future.
In a remote and hidden valley with a babbling brook in the southern Japanese Alps region, Aoki Ren used to proudly show his cattle farm’s serene surroundings to fastidious buyers of quality wagyu beef.

That tranquility, however, has been shattered by helicopter noises, blasting operations, and truck traffic since the launch of local construction for the superconducting magnetic levitation train in 2016, operated by Central Japan Railway. [...] The project cuts right through the mountain village of Oshika, where Mr. Aoki and about 940 others live among nature.

[...]

Critics of the maglev project say Oshika is the latest in a long list of rural communities bearing the brunt of Japan’s rapid economic growth, without seeing the reward. Some residents welcome the development and hope a new high-speed rail stop located an hour’s drive from Oshika will help address the village’s population decline. But many others argue that the project threatens the very character of the village, and call for more grassroots, sustainable forms of development.

“Villagers are opposed to each other over the maglev project,” says Konno Kaito, sister of Mr. Aoki. “But what we have in common is we love Oshika.”

[...]

The second-generation cattle rancher fears the maglev project could bring more damage to the environment, as construction workers prepare to erect a transmission tower on the thickly forested mountain behind his house and build a tunnel underneath the river.

[...]

Longtime climber and Oshika transplant Munakata Mitsuru worries about the village’s increasing dependency on the Nagano prefectural government, as well as pollution.

“When you build a tunnel for trucks and dig big holes in the mountains, what comes next is industrial waste even if the maglev project aborts,” he says. “More public works projects mean more destruction of nature.”

[...]


Experts and locals worry the maglev tunnel construction could trigger a natural disaster in the landslide-prone Oshika. In 1961, torrential rains caused landslides and flooding in Oshika and its neighboring areas, killing 136 people and destroying 1,500 homes, according to central government figures. This incident is blamed, in part, for Oshika’s shrinking population.

[...]

Kaneko Masaru, an economics professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, calls the idea of urban firms building massive public works projects in rural areas “obsolete,” and says Japan needs to break away from its centralized system of development.

“It’s very important for each region to think about how to get the economy moving on its own,” he says.

Instead of relying on an infrastructure project like the maglev, many in Oshika stress the need for sustainable development.

[...]
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/cattle-farms-bul ... 33110.html Accessed: 2022-04-16
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