Election campaign -- tools of the trade
7月２２日の千曲市会議員選挙に向かって、今週はずっと選挙運動。旅館の仲間が出るので我々旅館青年部が応援で選挙カーに乗っています。きっと周りにいい迷惑となっているけど、この一週間を許してください。
今回の選挙の一番の議題は市長の押している新・新幹線の駅。長野新幹線に「新千曲駅」を作れば、人が来ると。
現在の長野新幹線の長野駅・上田駅間は33.2kmで12分です。その間に新駅を作るって、どう見ても短すぎる。まあ、それは別として、もっと大きい問題は玄関だけに馬鹿でかいお金をかけて、中身を改善しないと、誰も来ないよと。
一番良い事例はスイスのZermatt.それほど交通が不便な所がない。なのに、リピーター率がすごい。なぜかと言うと、中身の魅力。
同でしょうか？新幹線の駅は何十億円がかかるけど、その以前の問題があるのではないでしょうか？
All this week, Chikuma City is full of loud campaign cars circling all the neighborhoods -- Sunday is the City Assembly election. One of my fellow innkeepers is in the running so I have been helping out by riding in the noisy sound van and waving to everybody.
One of the hottest topics for this election is whether or not to build a new bullet train station on the Nagano Shinkansen line. Our mayor is pushing for it regardless of the fact that it would be built on one of the shortest sections of the track. There are only 33.2 kilometers between the current Ueda and Nagano Stations -- a 12 minute span at Shinkansen speeds.
Besides, it is questionable why enormous sums of tax money would be spent on access when so much work needs to be done to increase the appeal of our town first.
One good example is Zermatt, Switzerland. It is one of the most inconvenient places to go to on earth, yet has one of the highest rates of repeat visitors.
Our mayor has a "Build it and they will come" philosophy, but I think efforts need to be made to increase the reasons to come, first.
