While metropolises continue to profit from economic concentration processes, regional areas and towns located between these metropolises are increasingly confronted with the consequences of demographic change and an eroding infrastructure and social services. The future of these forgotten and neglected regions is precarious when the public purse tightens funding for services to these regions, e.g., when they close schools, hospitals and other public institutions, and the private sector shows little interest in filling the gaps. The economic basis of these types of regions is hardly viable when – as a consequence – a young, educated labor force is forced to leave to search for employment elsewhere.
This symposium will continue European-Japanese dialogs initiated at a conference in Berlin in September 2007.