Kan Told to Decentralize Japan on Tokyo Annihilation Danger

Takayoshi Igarashi has spent much of his career railing against Japan’s public-works spending culture. Now, he’s advocating what could become the nation’s biggest investment in urban planning in decades.

Two days before Japan suffered its record earthquake and a devastating tsunami on March 11, Prime Minister Naoto Kan appointed Igarashi as a Cabinet adviser on coping with Japan’s population decline and rural-region decay. Igarashi says the disaster has made clear the nation must reduce the role of its capital city to avert an even greater catastrophe.