'Urban revival' must be in people's interests, not construction companies' -- Akahata editorial, April 12 (excerpts)

In the major cities of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, the vacancy in office rooms has rapidly increased to 8-10 percent.

The number of workers in Tokyo's 23 wards declined for the first time in the postwar period, resulting from the sharp increase in business failures under the Koizumi Cabinet's policy of write-offs of bad loans and arbitrary corporate restructuring.

A private research institutes estimates that the demand for office space (equivalent to 23 Marunouchi buildings) will disappear from the market in 2010, due to the reduced number of employees.

The local governments dominated by "all-are-the ruling parties" coalition are following the central government policy of constructing new high-rise buildings in the name of "urban revival".

Destructive to economy and environment

Under Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro, there are projects to construct new buildings, the space of which is equivalent to 60 55-storied skyscrapers.

A new 43 story building for the use of offices and shops has no tenants for ten of its floors when it started business on April 10.

The over-supply of new buildings is adversely affecting business operations for the existing buildings and local economies. A chain of business failures is possible when tenants in major local shopping malls move out to new buildings.

Constructing a new trunk road in Tokyo, which the metropolitan government is planning under the pretext of "urban revival" will cost 100 million yen (916,000 dollars) a meter.

Obviously the large public works projects which the Liberal Democratic Party governments imposed on local municipalities went bankrupt. Such projects were useless in revitalizing the economy. They only helped major general contractor construction companies and other large corporations to siphon off more tax money. Left behind are new airports rarely used, ports used mostly by anglers, wasteful dams, environmental destruction, and enormous sums of public debts.

The budgets for these large development projects lead to a decrease in the budgets for social welfare and living conditions. They result in the cuts of budgets which citizens really need, such as budgets for schools, housing, and small roads. (end)