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It's no secret that Japan's population is declining, and that this is causing an emptying out of the countryside to the benefit of the big cities.

Fruit assortment - a Furusato Nozei System thank you gift from a rural municipalityA trip to Sado Island a couple of years ago brought home to me the realities of this demographic change. The formerly bustling main street of what was called Ryotsu City when I lived there back in the late 1980s was almost completely dead, with more than half the stores boarded up.

Since 2008, Japan has been trying to mend the economic inequalities that are caused by this rural outflux. The "Hometown Tax Payment System" (Furusato Nozei) lets those living in cities pay up to 20% of their Metropolitan Ward and Municipal Inhabitant Tax on Individuals (kojin juminzei) to a rural local body, in exchange for which the payer receives a "thank you gift" (henreihin), typically of local produce.
The system is popular and the various localities throughout Japan put their all into it, offering a huge range of local-made and -grown products. An industry has grown around it as localities compete with each other to offer attractive gifts, with numerous ranking websites to help the taxpayer-cum-consumer choose which region to support.

But now the urban wards and municipalities are feeling it. This year, the Tokyo metropolis has lost 26.16 billion yen (about USD 250 million) to the localities because of this system. Suginami ward, f...