Rural areas worldwide find COVID'S silver lining
`Reverse migration' sees city dwellers getting out of town
It was the “rural flight” phenomenon. For decades, populations worldwide had been leaving rural areas for cities, in hopes of better opportunities and pay. In fact, in 2018 the United Nations said 55 per cent of the planet lived in urban areas and predicted it would rise to 68 per cent by the middle of the century.
Then came the pandemic. People started re-evaluating their priorities, working from home, assessing their economic prospects and fleeing urban centres for places with lower COVID case counts. In India, China, Peru, the numbers reached the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. It was a force of habitat.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked what is likely the largest `reverse migration' — that is, a move from cities back to villages and rural areas — in modern history,” The Associated Press reported last September.
Some savvy rural towns were ready for the return, wittingly or not. In Italy, villages like Castropignano, Santo Stefano, and Salemi in Sicily sold rundown houses for just one euro to lure homeowners. In the Croatian town of Legrad, the price was one kuna. (Stipulations ensured that only those who intended to live there long term, and had the financial means to do so, could become owners.)
Now, in Japan, countryside homes are selling for as little as 50,000 yen — about $570. Local governments have launched incentives to encourage rural repopulation which, hopefully, will boost their economies.
The country's rural areas need it. There are about 8.49 million akiya (unoccupied homes) in Japan, according to its 2018 Housing and Land Survey, and the nationwide rural vacancy rate is roughly 16 per cent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
One of the more notable incentives is “akiya banks” — essentially online real estate marketplaces for cheap, abandoned homes in specific communities.
The akiya bank for Wakayama prefecture, which has its regional capital about an hour and 15 minutes from Osaka, launched in 2015 with 600 listings, Architectural Digest reports. About 200 of the houses now have new occupants, and sold for as low as 87,817 yen ($1,000). At other akiya banks, prices can dip to 50,000 yen ($570).
The catch is that new owners need to renovate and carry out structural work to meet building codes. And, unfortunately, there's less interest in DIY home renovations in Japan than there is in the U.S., Douglas Sutherland, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's senior economist for Japan, told Insider. Moreover, any foreigners looking to obtain akiya must navigate complicated property rights.
Still, the incentives could be a catalyst for change.
“The program not only helps the old owners, who were struggling to utilize the properties and pay taxes, but also for the town by reducing the number of abandoned buildings that could collapse or otherwise pose risks in the future,” a spokesperson for the Okutama government office told news publication Nikkei.