Sōichirō Takashima, Mayor of Fukuoka, Japan, discusses the city’s plans for a more sustainable and inclusive future, through urban development, start-ups and promotion of the SDGs.
Sōichirō Takashima
Born in 1974. Sōichirō Takashima served as a TV announcer for information programs from 1997. He became Mayor of Fukuoka in 2010 and was re-elected in 2014 and 2018, each time with a record number of votes. In 2017, Takashima was the first Japanese mayor to attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. As a young political leader, Mayor Takashima has been actively promoting Fukuoka across Japan and throughout the world.
Fukuoka’s projects align with its key strategies on city management: they aim to create a positive cycle that improves urban growth and quality of life; they aim to increase the number of tourists and businesses within the city; and they aim to foster citizens’ trust in the municipal government. Fukuoka now ranks as one of the most liveable cities in the world, and thanks to Mayor Takashima’s focus on business creation, Fukuoka was designated a national economic strategic zone in 2014, a status which allows it to relax legal regulations in order to create an environment that produces new value.
Mayor Takashima has also assumed national positions across a variety of fields such as adviser to the Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020.