Yokoze, a quiet, scenic town of around 8,400 in the mountainous Chichibu region in Saitama Prefecture, isn¡¯t immune to the sweeping demographic change impacting hundreds of rural municipalities across Japan.
The town¡¯s population has been shrinking for the past two decades as its residents age. It¡¯s one of 869 municipalities the Japan Policy Council think tank warned could ¡°vanish¡± in the near future due to fewer births.
When Yoshinari Tomita was elected mayor of Yokoze three years ago, he decided to experiment with a new tool to reinvigorate the town he grew up in: the so-called sharing economy.
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