About Sustainability…
About Sustainability… is a podcast presented by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, featuring IGES staff and guests having in-depth discussions about sustainability-related topics. Each episode addresses a different topic of conversation -- be it an upcoming event, a debate of interest, or an interesting research finding. With the topic as a starting point, we see where the conversation takes us. We aim at a broad audience, so we avoid using jargon and try not to assume lots of pre-existing knowledge on the topic. Views expressed during the podcast are those of the speaker at the time of recording and are not the official positions of IGES or other organisations involved.
About Sustainability…
Depopulation, shrinking cities and urban-rural migration
In this episode Alice Yamabe and Andre Mader speak with two IGES colleagues, Fernando Ortiz Moya and Yasuo Takahashi, about the phenomenon of depopulation. Fernando has been studying shrinking cities, and Yasuo has been doing research on urban to rural migration, so we have two quite different angles on this subject.
To many it may seem counterintuitive to worry about depopulation in a world in which the human populations continues to grow. But population growth rates have been slowing for decades, and have become negative in a growing list of countries. Interestingly, at least in Japan, this has not necessarily been good for people or the environment. On the other hand, perhaps we need to accept and adapt to this reality.
"About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.