World's Biggest NIMBY Gets Derailed on $60 Billion Project
A regional politician holding up Japan’s maglev program is resigning. Authorities must get this train back on track.
A shinkansen high-speed train travels past Hamamatsucho station in Tokyo.
Photographer: Philip Fong/AFP/Getty Images (2023)
With its progressive zoning rules and “build, baby, build” attitude, Japan doesn’t tend to have many not-in-my-backyard types. But the governor of one of the country’s less-talked-about prefectures more than made up for it.
Heita Kawakatsu, the four-term governor of Shizuoka, which sits roughly in between Tokyo and Nagoya, is a NIMBY like no other. He’s single-handedly been blocking the completion of one of the world’s most ambitious construction projects — a ¥9 trillion ($59.3 billion) magnetic-levitation train that will run at 500 kilometers (310 miles) an hour and eventually connect the Japanese capital and Osaka in just over 60 minutes.