JIRO Local, Now

Hello, this is Jiro! Today, we’d like to introduce Yeoncheon, a region in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. Located just outside the Seoul metropolitan area, Yeoncheon is a place with a unique character—one where the legacy of the Paleolithic era still lives on today. In Yeoncheon, an ambitious initiative has recently begun, aiming to attract 10 million annual “living population” visits. One key part of this effort is the Yeoncheon Paleolithic Festival, held every year in celebration of the region’s rich prehistoric heritage. Built around a fully realized Paleolithic theme, the festival offers an immersive experience that draws large crowds and plays a meaningful role in boosting Yeoncheon’s living population. Jiro visited the Paleolithic Festival in person. Based on what we saw with our own eyes and experienced firsthand at the festival, we organized a set of ideas aimed at further expanding Yeoncheon’s living population and held an exchange of views with officials from the Yeoncheon Co...

Hello, this is Jiro. I hope you’ve all been doing well. Lately, both Japan and Korea have been hearing the term “regional decline” more and more often. As young people leave for cities in search of jobs and education, many local communities are slowly losing their energy and momentum. How should we make sense of this reality, and what direction should regions take in the years ahead? To explore these questions, we sat down with Professor Nobuo Akai, a leading scholar who has spent many years researching local public finance and decentralization in Japan. Professor Nobuo Akai (Osaka University) Name : Nobuo Akai Affiliation : Osaka University Areas of Expertise : Public Economics, Decentralization