Depopulation, Aging, and Living Environments / Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences (PDF)

Kenji Tsutsumi, Dr. Lit., is a Professor in the Section of Human Geography, Graduate School of Letters, Osaka University. He is a socioeconomic geographer, and his main research fields are depopulation, regional change, regional planning, regional social capital, and theory of spatial peripheralization. He often visits mountainous villages, islands, former coal mining regions, and even locally decaying sites in large cities. He holds two posts as Professor at his school and was one of the first teachers in the Erasmus Mundus Program there. He is now also a Professor for the Programs for the Leading Graduate Schools, established and sponsored by the National Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology-the "Cross Boundary Innovation Program" at Osaka University. In 2008, he was chosen as a contributor to the work of "The Shrinking Cities Project" by Philipp Oswalt and in 2014 as a contributor to The International Encyclopedia of Geography, edited by the American Association of Geographers. In addition, he is a representative of a junior sports club and is an instructor of one of the Japanese martial arts, Giwakempo (having a 6th-grade black belt), as a local leader for child education.