Tokyo's neon lights to dim as Japan ages

TOKYO (Reuters) - In a leafy Tokyo suburb, a landlord visits his tenant only to discover a skeleton inside the apartment. The tenant had died three years before.

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None of the neighbors had noticed the man was missing. His bank kept on making rent payments until his account was empty and a rent check finally bounced, prompting the landlord's visit and the gruesome discovery.

Welcome to the macabre side of ageing Japan, where growing numbers of people are dying alone, uncared for and unnoticed in suburbs that are rapidly turning grey.

And nowhere more so than in Tokyo, the world's largest metropolis, where hostess bars and neon lights will dim in the coming decades as the population ages.

Lonely deaths such as the one in the Tokiwadaira district, on the outskirts of Tokyo, where the skeleton was discovered, will become more common as 60-and-70-something "children" with their own health problems find it difficult to care for their 80-something parents and understaffed nursing homes struggle to meet what is expected to be overwhelming demand.

Statistics suggest that already more than 20,000 people a year die alone in Japan -- 2 percent of all deaths.

This figure is expected to rise as the number of senior citizens living alone soars in Japan, the world's fastest ageing society. In 2055, around 40 percent of the population will be aged 65 and over.

"These are things we would rather cover up," said Takumi Nakazawa, 73, a community leader in the Tokiwadaira district where elderly residents have set up a neighborhood watch scheme.

Residents have been asked to report to authorities if they see neighbors' lights left on or off for a long time, clothes hanging out to dry for a protracted period and post boxes over-stuffed with newspapers and junk mail.

Such efforts have saved lives. An old woman who lost consciousness was rescued after a neighbor reported that she had not been seen and her television was on all day.

TOKYO TURNING GREY

Tokiwadaira is one of the capital's greyest suburbs, but the rest of Tokyo's metropolitan area, home to a quarter of Japan's 127 million people, will soon take on the same hue.

By 2020, about 14 percent of the population of greater Tokyo -- around 4.9 million people of a predicted population of 35 million -- will be aged 75 or older. Currently only around 7 percent of the greater Tokyo area are in this age bracket.

Within the next 15 years, the bustling city that never stops will be one of the world's greyest metropolises.

The suburbs of Tokyo, built by the government to accommodate people who flocked to the capital from the countryside as Japan's population exploded in the past few decades, will be hit hard as Japan's population shrinks to an estimated 90 million in 2055 from around 127 million today.

Experts predict that some of these suburbs of high-rise apartment complexes could become ghost-towns if the government doesn't swiftly plan for the city's grey future.

"There will be some areas where it will become almost impossible to do business," said Kosuke Motani of the Development Bank of Japan.

Tokyo suburbs are already bearing the brunt.

Some senior citizens who can afford to buy property in central Tokyo are moving out and the population is already starting to decline in some areas, hurting the local economy. Corner stores are shutting down and streets are often deserted.

"Our new town is becoming an old town," said a resident of one such community in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo.

Development experts say the Tokyo metropolitan government should start preparing now for the city's grey future, such as building old age homes for the millions of elderly people who will need nursing care as their health declines.

"Few local governments appear to recognize this," said Kosuke Motani, an expert on regional development at the Development Bank of Japan.

Some experts say the Tokyo metropolitan government, now busy with its bid to host the 2016 Olympics, is turning a blind eye to its likely demography in less than a decade.

COMPACT CITIES

Though greater Tokyo does not yet have a clear strategy for dealing with its graying population, some other Japanese cities are already taking steps of their own.

Aomori, near the northern end of Japan's main island of Honshu, has banned development work in suburbs to bring those living on the outskirts back to the city centre.

Aomori's attempt to turn itself into a "compact city" by concentrating the dispersed population in the city centre near railway stations is seen as a model for many other cities in Japan and abroad that are facing steep drops in population.

The city of 300,000 has built a condominium with a clinic and nursing care service centre, and is also trying to transform the shopping mall in the city centre into a senior-friendly area.

The mall now has wheelchair ramps and benches for the convenience of senior citizens.

"It'll be bothersome to drive when you get old. Senior citizens will want to live in the city centre," said Hiroshi Kato, a local business leader. "What we are doing now will bear fruit in five to 10 years," he said.