The Brookings Institution has come out with an interesting study ranking various cities, including Kumamoto, by their relative growth rates.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2015/01/22-global-metro-monitor

The map is interactive and should be of interest to those studying development and/or economics.

Here’s an explanation from the Guardian about the list:

“A list of the top notable cities on the list follows. They are listed by rank in the study; country; city; percent real GDP growth per capita; and employment growth in 2014.”

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/22/china-best-performing-economic-cities

And here’s an article that contains the complete list:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/how-does-your-city-stack-up-in-economic-ranking-of-300-world-cities-1.2200208

Tokyo, the highest ranking of all of the Japanese cities was only No. 201. Kumamoto was not far behind. I’m not an economist so I’m not qualified to evaluate these results but, on the surface at least, it was seem that Kumamoto isn’t doing that badly after all.

Posted by Kirk