Local Community as a Device for Regional Innovation

Chapter 8 discusses the roles of local community in the recovery of local industries. Scale economies support the growth of local industries through market-based effects for productivity enhancement and cost reductions. They also promote knowledge spillovers that stimulate local innovations. When these effects are substantially lost in the disaster, the organic relations among local community stakeholders will be able to complement them to turn around the negative feedback arising from the reduction of population and agglomeration forces. We considered the case in which private local businesses, community-based NPOs, and civil society groups work together. For example, local residents recount experiences of the earthquake to hotel guests in Minamisanriku town and to passengers on the Sanriku Railway. However, if a local community is helping local industries only to reduce costs by providing free voluntary work, it may not be sufficient to reorient local industries to a growth path. We found some successful cases that combined the deep knowledge of local resources inherited and shared in the community with outsiders’ novel insights, knowledge, and networks. Product innovation thus developed constitute the basis for supplying high-value-added products to national and international markets. We have taken up experiences of Ama town, Kamikatsu town, and Kitagawa village as examples of leading regions in Japan that have been able to develop high-value-added products based on local communities. In the areas affected by Great East Japan Earthquake, we noted the emergence of innovative oyster farming in Minamisanriku town and new fish processing in Ishinomaki city. We have also shown that slow-paced lifestyle with art and culture in local communities attracts repeated visits from quality-conscious tourists. We picked up Naoshima town and Ojika town as examples of such regions. A population-declining region will benefit from increasing a “relational” population, who are not residents, but engage in the local community on a regular basis. In this regard, we took up some new movements in the disaster areas, for example, the intercity cooperation between Kamaishi city and Kitakyushu city, and between Rikuzentakata city and Nagoya city. In such a way, local communities support regional revitalization, complementing weakened economies of scale by accepting outsiders and expanding the relational population. Openness and tolerance to change are crucial for successful local communities.