The document proposes using innovative digital media to facilitate moving people from urban to rural areas of Japan and revitalizing rural communities. Specifically, it aims to stop rural flight in the valley of Tane by creating online tools to advertise housing and jobs there, integrating sustainability practices. It offers unused homes to newcomers who commit to the community's standards. Success will be measured not just by the numbers moving to Tane, but by their dedication to sustainability, which could then be applied more broadly across Japan's abandoned rural areas.

1. Facilitating a new generation
of sustainability in rural Japan
through innovative media
endo+agra
Ira Winder
Adele Phillips
Miho Kitagawa
Jenny Liu
MIT Global Challenge
Final Proposal
April 5, 2011
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra

2. RURAL FLIGHT and the destruction of sustainable culture
1 Sustainable rural production landscapes in 3 Rural areas in Japan are abandoned in
Japan are valuable assets to humanity, and the favour of urban areas at an alarming rate,
responsible practices of environmental steward- causing community disruption at various
ship contained within should be preserved (United social, economic, and environmental levels.
Nations Univ. and Japanese Ministry of Environment) Many communities are left with several
abandoned homes in their community, leaving
2 Our team has studied such rural areas for the a burden and an atmosphere of desertion
past 4 years in a valley called Tane, located within
Shiga Prefecture, Japan
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra

3. BACK TO COUNTRYSIDE and the end of a consumption-driven era
1 10,000 people migrating
to rural areas every year
with help from a government
subsidy called I-Turn, which
guarantees any one who
opts out of a metropolitan
job 1 million yen per year
beginning in 2012.
TOKYO,
2 590,000 people NAGOYA,
!
OSAKA . . .
homeless after March
11, 2011 earthquake and
tsunami
Task:
Endo+Agra will facilitate the BACK TO COUNTRYSIDE movement
to end RURAL FLIGHT and save the villages of Tane.
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra

4. PROPOSAL 2 The digital
media tools that
1 In order to bring we create will
visibility to Tane and integrate housing,
reach out to urban Hi! job opportunities,
dwellers who might and community
move to rural areas, information through
we must utilize digital a single web
media technology interface.
that doesn’t simply
reach people, but 3 Advertising will be
makes a new lifestyle conducted through
of sustainability government referrals
gra
enticing. and established
o+A
channels of social
E nd media.
4 We have collaborated with village elders to
offer immigrants to Tane the chance to use one
of the 50 abandoned homes in the region if
they agree to abide by community standards of
sustainability and service
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra

5. IMPLICATIONS
Success will be measured not just by the
amount of people who move to Tane, but by the
dedication of individuals who build Tane’s
new future of sustainability . . .
Rural Flight is an epidemic across
Japan, so successful efforts in Tane
may be scaled to include the tens of
thousands of abandoned homes across
the country.
And once people are unified under the
banner of sustainability, the capacity to
solve future problems has no bounds.
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra

6. Please check out our full
proposal for all the details!
2011 MIT Global Challenge Competition | Slidedeck | Endo+Agra