Moving the festival up by three weeks increased sales by 1.85 times. The one word missing from walkable policy is 'shade'.

For a long time, the Ogal Festival was a staple event in August. We moved it to early July.

There is only one reason: Shiwa in August is simply too hot.

Changing the dates is a fairly daunting decision for a local community. Traditional events have their reasons for being held when they are, vendors have their own schedules, and naturally, people ask, 'Why change it starting this year?' It was also a decision to abandon the flow of people before the Obon holiday. If attendance dropped, I would have had no way to apologize to the vendors who participated. To be honest, the truth is that I made the decision while trembling.

As a result, overall sales increased by 1.85 times.

Of course, the dates were likely not the only factor. There was luck with the weather, and the accumulation of content as well. Even so, as someone who stood on the front lines, I can say this much: people will come if it is not hot. If the temperature is walkable, they will come outside.

It is not that the 'town is losing to the home,' but that it is losing to the 'roof'.

On July 21, 2026, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism released an interim report titled 'The Direction of Future Urban Transport Policy.' It redefines cities in terms of 'hubs' and 'axes' and outlines a shift in public transport from demand-responsive to demand-creating.

In this document, there is one sentence that made me groan. Referring to the reality that the rate of going out has been declining in recent years, it states that 'the town is losing to the home.'

It is rare to find such a frank admission of defeat in a government document. However, if I may offer one bit of irony, the opponent the town has lost to is likely not the home.

Think about it. People are going out just fine. On summer holidays, shopping mall parking lots are full, underground malls are overflowing with people, and food courts in station buildings have no empty seats. Far from staying home, everyone is traveling quite a distance and walking for quite a while.

However, they are only walking under a roof.

The town is not losing to the home; the town is losing to the roof. And under the roof, there is always air conditioning. In other words, to state the opponent accurately, the outdoors has lost to air conditioning.

If you change just one character in the diagnosis, the prescription changes. If it is losing to the home, it becomes a matter of motivation for going out. If it is losing to the roof, it becomes a matter of the outdoor thermal environment.

I searched through 69,000 characters, and 'heat' appeared only once.

I was curious, so I mechanically searched the entire text of the published main PDF. It contains approximately 69,000 characters.

The word 'heat' appeared only once.

That one instance was in a bullet point discussing the improvement of walkability, in this subordinate clause: 'At this time, consideration for the climate according to regional characteristics, such as heat and snowfall, is also necessary.' Heat is placed on the shelf of regional characteristics, right alongside snow.

And 'heatstroke,' 'heat island,' 'climate change,' 'street trees,' 'green shade,' 'tree shade,' 'shade,' and 'shade' (in English) were all zero. The character for 'green' appears twice, but both times it is part of the department name 'Parks and Greenery/Landscape Division.'

Snow is certainly a regional characteristic. It falls in Shiwa, but not in Naha. However, in Japan in 2026, is heat a regional characteristic? In a country where even Hokkaido experiences days of extreme heat, heat should no longer be a matter of local circumstances, but a common prerequisite nationwide.

I say this just to be clear: this is not a criticism of policy. It is quite the opposite. I want to say that perhaps the content is good, but it is losing out due to how it is being sold. I felt that the people who put together these proposals—both the term 'urban transport policy' and the term 'walkable'—might not actually be walking themselves.

Isn't what residents really want shade, rather than wide sidewalks or transportation options?

In the world of marketing, there is a famous proposition that customers don't want a drill, they want a hole. It's the idea that while sellers want to talk about their products, what buyers want is simply the result.