>>101576244Its more that once rural population passes a critical low, its not possible to rebuild.
All the education for apprenticeship and higher education is also located in some urban hub.
Japan is similar to Scandinavia and Korea: Any village that wasn't near a good port or got railroad trough it is basically just somewhere to put up cabins, if the nearby mountains are not overgrown.
This means anything that isn't along a major goods arterie is now a desolate wasteland.
But in Japan the debate is a bit more nuanced, because the country is quite populated. Which boils down to: What do you think about Tokyo and Osaka that is getting the Shinkansen? Or what do you think about the possibility that Tokyo-Osaka is jjust one big megacity alongside a HSR, and the rest of Japan is basically depopulated except for foraging and farming?
