Fukushima, six months on, ctd

Or, perhaps more fittingly, Japan. Writers from the Wall Street Journal present another perspective on the country's recovery from the immense destruction witnessed six months ago.

Japan has indeed made considerable progress since nearly a half million people were left cold and homeless in March. Most of those in evacuation centers have moved to temporary homes. The rubble, once scattered across a ruined landscape, is now in tidy mountains. Police stations and schools are near full service, and supermarkets and gas stations are reappearing. Factory managers have restored supply chains much faster than anticipated, while entrepreneurs have found new business opportunities amid the turmoil.

But some of the unfolding changes are painful. The disaster slammed a region where the population was disproportionately old and reliant on an inefficient, protected farming sector. Japan was deeply in debt even before March 11, and it doesn't have the resources to fully restore what existed before the earthquake. One emerging legacy of the combined disasters is the acceleration of the northeast's decline. 

An earlier item in this thread here.