Prime Minister Shinzo Abe attended the first meeting of the Advisory Council on Hometown Creation at the Prime Minister's Office.

The Prime Minister said in his address,

"We Japanese have lived since ancient times within a beautiful natural environment and beautiful culture.
Within this lifestyle, we have come to love the places where we are born, our hometowns, and we have fostered a public spirit and public morals. This is our history.
However, from the end of World War II until today, along with the concentration of the population in major metropolitan areas, we have seen a rise in the number of people who make it to adulthood without ever having the perception that they have someplace to return to.
In terms of how we consider the concept of a hometown in the midst of this, while I think that everyone can have their own ideas about it, I hope that everyone in this Advisory Council will think about how to protect hometowns, in the sense that they are something that has been developed in Japan since ancient times, and about how to preserve them. At the same time, I hope you will consider the places that each person will finally return to."