The Option That Disappeared

Every year Semboku City conducts what it calls a citizen opinion survey. Three thousand forms go out and a little over a thousand come back. The results are published on the city website.

Among the questions is this one.

"Do you want to go on living in Semboku City?"

In fiscal 2022 there were six options.

    I want to stay where I am
    I want to move somewhere else within the city
    I want to move somewhere else within the prefecture
    I want to move out of the prefecture
    I want to move away but I cannot
    I do not know

Read the fifth one again.

"I want to move away but I cannot."

In fiscal 2022, 12.5 percent of respondents chose it. One person in eight.

Whoever wrote that question had thought it through, I suspect.

Someone who lives here because they want to stay and someone who lives here because they want to leave and cannot are two entirely different people. The first is content. The second is at a dead end. Count them both as "people who live here" and you see nothing. So the question separated them. I think that was a good question.

If you live in Kakunodate you can more or less guess who those 12.5 percent are. There is a house. There is a field. There are parents. They are past the age for changing jobs. Selling would fetch next to nothing. So they do not move. They cannot move.

Those people could mark that one item honestly.

The option disappeared the following year.

The fiscal 2023 summary carries this note: "For fiscal 2023 the item 'I want to move away but I cannot' has been deleted."

No reason is given.

After it vanished, "I do not know" grew. That option stood at 12.1 percent in fiscal 2022, rose to 19.4 percent in fiscal 2023, and has sat around twenty percent since. Answers that had lost their destination appear to have flowed there.

And here is how the city describes this question.

From the fiscal 2023 summary: "As in the previous year, over sixty percent of respondents answered that they want to go on living where they are."

Over sixty percent want to stay. That is indeed what it says.

It is only that the line beside that sixty percent, the one that said "want to move away but cannot," is no longer on the page.

To be clear, I am not saying the city concealed anything. The deletion is noted. If they meant to hide it they would not have written the note. Questions get reviewed every year, and if there are too many options someone will tidy them up. There may well have been a reason.

The reason simply is not written down.

So one should just ask. Why did you drop that option? The citizen opinion survey is made and published by the city, so this is a question that can be answered.

One thing, though, is certain.

In fiscal 2022, one person in eight answered that they wanted to move away and could not. That was counted. It is on the record.

From fiscal 2023 onward, nobody knows how many such people there are.

They did not disappear. Only the counting did.

Semboku City has set itself the goal of becoming "a town that is No. 1 in Japan for happiness."

The figure showing that happiness is rising is published carefully every year. The explanation that over sixty percent want to go on living here is attached carefully every year.

The number of people who want to leave and cannot no longer appears anywhere.

Did the figures improve, or did the way of counting change? At the very least, I would like it to remain possible to tell the difference.

The surveys for both fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023 are still on the city website. Put them side by side and you can check everything I have written here.

If you are curious, open them and read them yourself.

[Note on dates: Japanese fiscal years run from April to March. Reiwa 4 and Reiwa 5 have been rendered here as fiscal 2022 and fiscal 2023.]