Part of my YouTube diet is English-speaking expat YouTubers who live in Japan (UK, US, Canada, Australia), and just based on what they have shared there are some firms that specialize in property searches by foreigners. Not like “buy up a Japanese town and make it Australian”, just networking with more open-to-foreigner Japanese, and being an interface with foreigners to help them learn to integrate.
Like everywhere in the world, remote villages in Japan lack services. From restaurants to health care to home supplies, it’s more time consuming and expensive to get some things, and others are just not available. From the YouTubers I watch, the community connections enabled by the great mass transit and walkable urban areas in much of Japan (though not all - some parts ate the car-centric pill) are what keep them there, and the friction to maintaining friendships from a rural area has pushed several to move to Tokyo.
As far as “how is Japan adjusting” to population decline, elder care sucks. A lot of people die alone unnoticed (kodokushi). Markets adjust to lower supply of workers (Japan is at the cutting edge of automation), but quality of life for seniors can’t be automated.
Part of my YouTube diet is English-speaking expat YouTubers who live in Japan (UK, US, Canada, Australia), and just based on what they have shared there are some firms that specialize in property searches by foreigners. Not like “buy up a Japanese town and make it Australian”, just networking with more open-to-foreigner Japanese, and being an interface with foreigners to help them learn to integrate.
Like everywhere in the world, remote villages in Japan lack services. From restaurants to health care to home supplies, it’s more time consuming and expensive to get some things, and others are just not available. From the YouTubers I watch, the community connections enabled by the great mass transit and walkable urban areas in much of Japan (though not all - some parts ate the car-centric pill) are what keep them there, and the friction to maintaining friendships from a rural area has pushed several to move to Tokyo.
As far as “how is Japan adjusting” to population decline, elder care sucks. A lot of people die alone unnoticed (kodokushi). Markets adjust to lower supply of workers (Japan is at the cutting edge of automation), but quality of life for seniors can’t be automated.