Yokosuka is growing but once it was nominated as the Japan’s worst city of exodus.
People coming in were much less than people leaving the city due to factories closing and large companies leaving the city in 2013.
Yokos Kaigi was held on June 26th and entrepreneurs were there to maximize the efficiency and try to rebuild the crippled city.
The mayor Yuto Yoshida, born 1975 (young!) , came to the event to open up the ceremony. He knows that Yokosuka is in deep shit.
That’s why he decided to run for the office in 2009 (age of 33) and won the election, and this is his second term.
Yokosuka has a research park funded by the city.
Such other place in Kanagawa is in Kawasaki, the Science Park (KSP) which is one of the largest development center that also incubates start up companies as well as well known manufacturers.
Yokosuka is known for the naval base and many military vessels arrive, including submarines, which can be seen from the Yokosuka station, next to the port. But many large companies have left. People who were employed were left clueless and some really in bad shape. Many left the city to find new jobs and homes.
The mayor decided to stand up and try to use this opportunity by rebuilding the social infrastructure and tried to start up small companies.
This Yokosuka Valley project will try to bring in or start up 100 companies in 10 years, with the economical stimulation of 10 billion yen (little less than 100 million USD.
With the correct usage of information, communication, internet technology, Yokosuka is trying to grow out of a nutshell that plagued the city for the past 20 years of economic stagnation. The city wants to react to the business oriented events and make a new Yokosuka.
And why am I writing about Yokosuka?
The city looks to have a future in the IT world, not like Chigasaki.
Probably, my next step is to start up an IT meeting in Chigasaki or may be somewhere else.