Top place for foreigners to live
According to the Center for Multicultural Information and Assistance (多文化共生センター) and reported on in the Kobe Shimbun, the easiest places in Japan for foreigners to live in were the prefectures Kanagawa and Hyogo (my home), and the cities of Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Osaka (my previous home city and the location of my employer).
Doing poorly were the perfectures of Ibaraki, Hiroshima, Kochi, Fukuoka, Oita and Kagoshima on twenty to twenty-nine points, and right at the bottom with nineteen or less points each were Aomori, Aichi, Saga, Nagasaki and Okinawa. It is significant to note, I think, that Aichi has many, many foreigners residing there working for Toyota and related companies, Nagasaki is rather international, and Okinawa of course has lots of USA military bases.
UPDATE: Scott and Durf have provided information (see comments below) on how the points were awarded. I’ll translate the list of questions tonight, if possible.
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Scott said,
February 13, 2007 @ 09:50
Ken,
Here’s the page for the survey at the Center for Multicultural Information and Assistance website. It’s got more information on the questions that were asked and data collected. Looks like they will publish the survey in March.
http://www.tabunka.jp/osaka/jichitai_chosa.html
Durf said,
February 13, 2007 @ 10:08
That’s the same page I was about to link for you . . . It looks like you get from 5 down to 0 points for each of those 16 items on the list.
Ken said,
February 15, 2007 @ 01:41
As a former resident of Kawasaki, I can say the best thing was that no one was ever in line at the ‘foreigner’ desk when I went to the ward office. It took about 10 minutes every time. I loved when I had to go to “Counter D” for some other paperwork and the guy I was just talking to would run over to “Counter D” and get there 3 seconds before me. Other than that, it has too many hills to really be considered “easy” to live in. I prefer the flatness of Setagaya, though its ward office happens to be located in a very bad place and is filled with people in front of me in line who have too many questions about how to fill out the paperwork.
Lester said,
February 15, 2007 @ 23:53
Looking at the map, Aichi is actually in the 50-59 point category. The article actually refers to Ehime, not Aichi. Incidentally, the recently re-elected Governor of Aichi declared in his ‘Manifesto’ that the prefectural government would provide support to Brazilian schools in the prefecture, as well as introduce Portuguese language courses at prefectural universities.
David said,
March 1, 2007 @ 00:59
Whoo, go Hyogo!
I know you’ll give me that drivers licence eventually!