Toyota Doubles Down on Japan

The village of Ohira is in Miyagi prefecture, 20 miles northwest of Sendai Bay, the stretch of Japan's coastline closest to the epicenter of the massive Mar. 11 earthquake. In recent years the area has become Toyota (TM) country, and car and car-supply plants dot the region. But in a year that has been hard on Toyota and cruel to Japan, Ohira has done O.K. In the Sendai Shiogama port, the tsunami crushed cars as if they were soda cans, scattered street lamps like lawn clippings, and left huge fishing trawlers beached on the docks among the blown-open shells of warehouses. Ohira itself, however, lies inland. Compared with the devastation along the coast, the damage the village suffered was mild: cracked walls, torqued pavement, a few utility poles listing to one side or the other.

Ohira, in short, was lucky, and not for the first time. The village has managed to escape much of the nation's economic stagnation, too. Unlike many Japanese towns, Ohira has good jobs to keep its young people from fleeing to Tokyo and Osaka. The population of 5,500 swells by more than 2,000 during the workday as commuters stream in. Oki Electric Industry, which makes servers and ATMs, has a factory in Ohira, as does zipper maker YKK. Corporate taxes account for 80 percent of the village's revenue.