Japan's suburban department stores in front of train stations are at crisis
Mitsukoshi-Isetan, one of the biggest department store chains in Japan, decided closure of Matsudo branch.
Like Matsudo branch, suburban department stores have been deprived of their customers by downtown stores in Tokyo and then forced to close or shrink the size of the stores. So, we can say that suburban stations around Tokyo are now losing their functions as downtowns of suburban cities.
