Kyoto City on the verge of bankruptcy

But pandemic-related expenses and the collapse of tourism have merely exposed decades of fiscal mismanagement in the city. The red ink started flowing 30 years ago, when Kyoto built a second subway line at a cost that eventually ballooned to $4 billion. The Tozai line has never managed to meet its daily passenger targets. Officials also invested $120 million in a lavish upgrade and refurbishment of City Hall, complete with stained glass windows, European-style damask-covered walls, a Japanese teahouse, a roof garden, and even an underground corridor linking it to the white-elephant subway. Residents snidely note that the corridor is barely used. So, last fall, the axe finally dropped. The city government slashed transit subsidies for senior citizens, raised day-care fees and cut salaries for civil servants — despite concern that the austerity measures would hasten an already-alarming exodus of residents from Kyoto.

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