[TinyRedLeaf]

It's a few days old, but since no one brought it up, I'll add the story here, where it belongs.

Ageing Japanese town bets on young mayor

Yubari, Hokkaido (April 26, Thu): Most young people have already fled this city of empty streets and shuttered schools, whose bankrupt local government collapsed under the twin burdens of debt and demographics that are slowly afflicting the rest of Japan.

Now, Yubari, a former coal-mining town on Japan's northernmost main island, Hokkaido, is hoping an unlikely saviour can reverse its long decline: a 31-year-old rookie mayor who has come to symbolise the struggle confronting young Japanese in the world's most greying and indebted nation.

"Japan will tread the same path someday," said Mr Naomichi Suzuki, who a year ago this month became the youngest mayor of the country's most rapidly ageing city. "If we can't save Yubari, what will it mean for the rest of Japan?"

In Yubari, Japan's demographic and fiscal demise is on fast-forward. The city's population has plunged by 90 per cent since its heyday as a coal-mining hub in the 1950s and '60s. Currently, fewer than 10,500 people live in a geographic area approximately the size of New York City. And of those remaining Yubari residents, nearly half are older than 65.

Yubari has also faced its day of reckoning with creditors. Crippled by the closure of its coal mines as Japan moved to petroleum-based fuels and nuclear power, and after a failed bid to revive its tourism economy with subsidies from the central government, Yubari went bankrupt in 2007, owing more than US$400 million to holders of its municipal bonds.

Under Japanese law, that debt must still be repaid under a bankruptcy reorganisation the city will be labouring under for the next 15 years.

Dispatched from Tokyo
The city's services have been cut to the bone, and the public work force of about 300 has been cut by half. Its public bath has been closed and its six elementary schools consolidated into one. The aftermath of the March tsunami last year further decimated local tourism.

It was into these depths of despair that Mr Suzuki, then a 26-year-old public servant in the city of Tokyo's social-welfare department, was dispatched to Yubari on a year-long loan from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

He quickly established rapport with the locals, volunteering his free time to help resuscitate the city's annual film festival and checking in regularly with his elderly neighbours.

He began a door-to-door survey to get a better grasp of how the city's cuts were affecting living standards. He also pushed for the city to set up regular three-way meetings with the central government and the prefecture of Hokkaido, to discuss Yubari's debt repayments.

In late 2010, eight months after Mr Suzuki returned to his old job with the Tokyo government, a group of Yubari locals called on him with a bold request: Come back to the city, and run for mayor.

Mr Suzuki was politically untested and a relative unknown. But something remarkable happened in a country usually dominated by the elderly: the incumbent mayor, Mr Hajime Fujikura, a 70-year-old former car-industry executive, declared he would step aside and settle for a city-council seat.

"Look, our children and grandchildren have all left Yubari, but Mr Suzuki came all the way from Tokyo to try to save us," said Mr Fujikura. "If we seniors don't support him, who will?"

Emboldened, Mr Suzuki's camp unleashed a campaign blitz. Trudging through the heavy snow and flashing his winning smile, Mr Suzuki visited more than 5,000 of the city's 6,000-plus households, laying down his message: Yubari can be saved.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara even flew to Yubari to cheer on his former employee.

A record voter turnout produced a landslide victory for Mr Suzuki over Ms Yukari Iijima, 46, a former national parliamentarian.

Hard times
In his first year, Mr Suzuki moved swiftly, abolishing the post of vice-mayor and putting the resultant savings on salary towards medical care for the city's infants. He is moving to sell off some of the city's bad investments.

He is also making his share of sacrifices for Yubari: Mr Suzuki is not only Japan's youngest mayor, but also thought to be its lowest-paid. His annual salary of 3.74 million yen (about US$46,000) is a third less than what he was making in Tokyo and lower than some first-year salaries there.

Mr Suzuki and Manami, his wife of 11 months, have registered their marriage at city hall, but are unsure when they can afford a wedding. "Both Yubari and I have a mountain of debt," he joked.

"In many ways, it's not my generation's fault that Japan has so much debt," he said. "But blaming others won't get us anywhere. We just need to find a way forward. It's the responsibility of all of us born into this age."

NEW YORK TIMES