An analysis of the Itami Airport dispute, the creation of special airport accounts, and the political利益 structures that culminated in the Moritomo land issue, revealing how reckless public spending was passed on to ordinary passengers.

The Hidden Cost of Political Deals: How Airport Vested Interests Burdened the Public
A detailed account of Japan’s airport special accounts and political vested interests, explaining how reckless spending led to the world’s highest landing fees and culminated in the Moritomo land controversy.

April 29, 2017.
What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.
Takayama.
However, if the airport were abolished, the residents of the Nakamura district would also lose their benefits, and the Ministry of Transport would lose its vested interests in the airport terminal.
Therefore, eleven local municipalities, including Itami City and Toyonaka City, formed what was called the “Association of Eleven Cities,” and decided to keep Itami Airport on the grounds that they would persuade the residents.
For this purpose, funds for airport 주변 development, in other words compensation for the surrounding “noise-affected areas,” were established through a special airport account.
From the Ministry of Transport’s perspective, this meant great joy, as it created two additional amakudari destinations: the post of chairman of the airport surrounding development organization and the presidency of Kansai International Airport.
The reason why an airport was deliberately built in Narita instead of expanding Haneda is exactly the same.
All eleven surrounding municipalities clung to the special airport account for everything from parks to roads.
And since all of this was made possible by the residents of the Nakamura district making a fuss, these resident Koreans were rewarded with new relocation sites and newly built houses.
However, the special airport account is funded by landing fees and fuel taxes collected from people who use airplanes.
The only ones who lose out are ordinary passengers.
In order to cover this reckless spending, Japan became the country that charges the highest landing fees in the world.
Once the Nakamura district issue was dealt with, the next targets for vested interests became areas further along the aircraft approach routes.
Thus, following the precedent of the Nakamura district, Toyonaka City demanded, “Sell us the land under the runway approach route for 1.4 billion yen because we will make it a park,” Moritomo said, “We will use this land for a school,” and local schools said, “We will build a school lunch center here,” and one after another began to feed on the money from the special airport account, attracting specific interest groups in the process.
The political forces that supported the Nakamura district were the Japanese Communist Party and the former Socialist Party.
The first person to raise a fuss over the Moritomo land sale issue was Makoto Kimura, a Toyonaka City councilor who had been a former secretary to Mizuho Fukushima of the Social Democratic Party.
Everything is connected.
This manuscript continues.