Japan is dotted with so many such communities that academics have coined a term ----villages that have reached their limits--- to describe those with populations that are more than half elderly. Out of 140 villages in Monzen, the municipality that includes Ogama, 40 percent have fewer than 10 households, inhabited mostly by ghe elderly.
Rural Japan has never recovered from its long recession, unlike urban areas. Many of its commercial main streets have been reduced to what the Japanese call shuttered streets, and few rural areas have found economic alternatives to the huge public works projects that the long-governing Liberal Democratic Party kept doling out.
During his five years in office, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reduced public works spending that yielded money and jobs to local construction companies.
Koizumi cut subsidies and tax redistribution to local governments, instead giving them the power to collect taxes directly But rural officials argue that with a decreasing population and few businesses, there are few taxes to collect.
In keeping with a nationwide movement to combine financially squeezed municipalities, Monzen merged with nearby Wajima City in February. In 2000, revenue from the national government to the two municipalities totaled $ 114 million, accounting for 50 percent of their overall revenue; in 2005, money from the capital fell to $ 90 million, or 44 percent of revenue.
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