Honcho Shotenagi

Honcho Shotengai is the main shopping street of Yubari, Hokkaido, a covered arcade lined with shops on both sides. The arcade roof spans the street between the two rows of buildings, supported on steel posts at the kerb edges. Most of the shopfronts are closed. Some have been closed long enough that the signage has faded; others still have product photographs in their windows. The pavement is wet from melted snow. A few residents pass through the frame, walking quickly, hands in pockets. The scale of the arcade speaks of a town that once supported a much larger population.

Yubari was a coal city. At its peak in 1960 the population was around 116,000. Honcho Shotengai was the commercial spine of the town, busy enough at any hour that the covered arcade made sense for shoppers. As the mines closed through the 1970s and 1980s, the population fell, and so did the trade. By 2007 the city had declared bankruptcy with debts of over $US200 million. Yubari's population today is below 7,000. The arcade in this photograph is what is left of the town's main street: a structure built for ten times the foot traffic it now carries.