Along with its surprising economic growth after world war II, Japan sustained a rapid population shift, with migration from rural to metropolitan areas. Since the 1970s, a developmental gap separating rural and urban areas has become increasingly clear. The government formulated the Third Comprehensive National Development Plan in 1977, aimed at restraining the concentration of population and industry into metropolitan areas. Nevertheless, those policies were insufficient to halt the decline of rural areas of Japan. In the 1980s, criticism of productionism arose. Therefore, governments added tourism and leisure as important components of regional development policy. In the 1990s, Japan was adversely affected by severe economic stagnation. The feasibility of regional development through attraction of new enterprises had been largely discredited. Aging and depopulation in rural districts worsened. A person with mobility as a member of a rural community is attractive to provoke an image of new rural society.