Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeAbstractThe shrinking and ageing of urban populations is a worldwide phenomenon, and in Japan it is a central problem not only for the future but already at present. In contrast to the large, dynamic cities of Japan, the mass of smaller cities with fewer than 200,000 inhabitants—in particular those located outside metropolitan areas—suffer population losses due to deindustrialization and ageing. The situation is especially severe in areas where the economy is based on a single industrial sector, such as mining and other ‘sunset’ industries. Today's situation in more remote areas of Japan can be seen as an early warning of future developments nationwide, because—independent of deindustrialization—Japan's population has been declining since 2005 and is ageing rapidly, most dramatically in remote areas. In the first part, this paper traces the population development of Japanese cities during the periods from 1960 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2005, in order to analyze the reasons for population decline. The second part focuses on shrinking areas in Hokkaidō, in particular the city of Yūbari, a former coal mining centre, located in the economically blighted area of Sorachi, where jobs have been scarce since the closure of the last pit in 1990. Municipal efforts to revitalize the local economy by shifting from tankō [mining] to kankō [tourism] failed to stop socio-economic decline: In June 2006, the city of Yūbari went bankrupt and has become dependent on a drip feed of financial support from the central government. Based on field research in the supposedly intact municipality shortly before its bankruptcy, this paper describes the situation and evaluates possible strategies of socio-economic action.