Illustration by PJ Loughran

In August of 2015, Yoshito Hori (MBA 1991) returned to his hometown of Mito, Japan, for a reunion with his high school swimming team. After high school, Hori had gone to Kyoto University and then to HBS, eventually settling in Tokyo to begin his career, which has included founding GLOBIS Management School and GLOBIS Capital Partners, a VC firm. He hadn’t been back to Mito in 34 years.

Hori was distressed by what he saw: Shuttered department stores, abandoned buildings, empty streets. It had become a ghost town. “It was a really shocking sight,” says Hori, and one at odds with the bustling commercial hub he remembered.

The experience led him to start the Downtown Mito Rebirth Project in 2016, a public-private partnership designed to breathe life back into the city. In this conversation with the Bulletin, Hori talks about his plan to reinvigorate his hometown—and why it's important to save the cities that the global economy has left behind.

Dan Morrell: What were the goals of the Downtown Mito Rebirth Project—and how have you gone about approaching those goals?

Yoshito Hori: There were two things I thought about when this started: First, let's bring back the people and the traffic that has been lost in downtown Mito. The second was to create a more vibrant city, with more startups and more businesses.

The first thing I did was to become the owner of the Ibaraki Robots, the local basketball team. The Ibaraki Robots have now, in five years, grown its revenues eight times, grown attendance five times, and been promoted to a top category league just like the NBA in the US . The second thing we did was address central Mito, where the department stores left and there was empty land for 25 years. We rented the land and created a temporary arena and a coffee shop, a studio, and a car park. It was like a complex. And that changed the people’s mindset in Mito, because that empty land right in the center of downtown was reborn.

The third thing we did was to create what we call “M-Work,” which is a co-working space, closer to the Mito train station. We also started a history project called M-History, because—even though Mito has contributed greatly to the modernization of Japan—that part of history was not covered by many historians.

We also bought a broadcasting station. Ibaraki prefecture had only one broadcasting station, including TV and radio, so that studio had a monopoly on the airwaves. So we bought a station from Asahi Shimbun newspaper company and turned it around, making it both an internet media production and a radio station. We are also planning to make it a TV station with an internet video component.

And we have created a park and event space on a piece of land overlooking Lake Senba, which is a beautiful lake. It is next to Kairaku-en, which is a very historical park built by Tokugawa Nariaki, whose son was the last Shogun, and began the modern era in Japan.

DM: This is a lot to achieve in a relatively short amount of time. What sort of coalition or partnerships did you have to develop to achieve this?

YH: We started with three groups of people. One is those people who are now living and working in Mito, who are very influential. The second group is those who have left Mito, just like me, but have strong affection and connection to the city. These first two groups were mostly alumni of my high school. The third group has nothing to do with Mito but had a strong influence in Japan—they are my friends and I asked them to be part of it.

There were about 50 people, and we started to hold meetings with the mayor of Mito, who agreed to support the project through deregulation, by providing tax incentives, and by communicating with the city’s population so the project could move forward. So it required cooperation between the private sector and the Mito city administration, and also the strong passion of the people of Mito.

DM: What impact has the project already had? What are the positive changes that you see in the city and the region at large?

YH: Mito had not been seeing any success in the past 34 years, because—after the [real estate] bubble burst [in the 1990s]—the land in central Mito had been declining in value. This is the only mid-sized city in Japan where the price of land has not gone up since the bubble burst. But now, gradually, Mito has seen an upward trend, with more and more people wanting to invest in the downtown area. So the mentality of people has changed, and businesses are coming back. People have felt more pride about what they are doing in Mito and also a greater connection to the city.

DM: What's next for the Rebirth Project?

YH: We are working on building a light rail tram from Mito Station to Ibaraki National University that we hope will create more and more foot traffic. People will be able to come to shop, meet for coffee, go to museums and concerts. They can also go to the Ibaraki Robots Arena by tram.

I think the tram will be a central part of downtown Mito, and it will send the message that the city is thinking very significantly about the importance of downtown Mito. And that will create more and more apartments, housing, and stores.

We also just bought a piece of land on the other side of Lake Senba to create a resort and hotel. At this time, there are not many upscale hotels in Mito, and so there aren’t many high net worth tourists coming into Mito because there are not many places for them to stay.

DM: What can your experience with Mito teach other cities facing similar challenges?

YH: I read an article saying that JP Morgan has focused on rebuilding Detroit so that it will become a showcase for other cities in the States—and inspire other companies to revitalize cities. The reason why they chose Detroit, I read, was that the city was devastated because of the declining automobile industry. My case is quite similar. I chose Mito because it was the worst hit since the bubble burst, and it has not come back again.

I also hope that it will become a showcase for other entrepreneurs to do something for their hometowns. I’m hoping that other successful entrepreneurs—instead of just buying their own private jet or buying gorgeous clothes—will think it worthwhile to use his or her network, assets, capability, and time to focus on one city to revitalize and come up with a rebirth project.

DM: Yoshi, you have written in the past about the concept of “kokorozashi” and its importance in your life. Can you talk about the concept of kokorozashi, what it means to you, and how it might've played a role in this story?

YH: Kokorozashi is personal resolve. There are three parts: One is your vision, what you want to do. Second, is the commitment that you will do it. Third thing is that it has a strong, influential philosophy so that other people will do something for you. So kokorozashi is the essential part of what I do in anything where I invest my time and energy.

I have three kokorozashi. One is building GLOBIS University so that we can create an ecosystem of people, capital, and knowledge for creation and innovation. My second kokorozashi is to contribute to the nation of Japan and the people in Japan to make the country a better place. The third kokorozashi I have is to make Mito a better city through the Mito Downtown Rebirth Project.

DM: Why is it important for us to not lose cities like Mito? What do we lose when we lose these cities?

YH: Whenever you become more and more international, your identity becomes the most essential part of your life and your mindset. The identity comes from where you were born and raised, and what kind of people you met when you were a child, and what kind of scenery you saw, and what kind of people you communicated with, and what kind of schools you went to. Those create your identity and that identity will become the essential part in communicating to anybody.

I was born and raised in the city of Mito, and I experienced its culture and climate, which built me. That identity will be lost if the city of Mito is devastated.

Kids are being brought up in Mito, and I want them to be proud of the beautiful city, the historical aspects of the city, so that they can build on their good identities as Mito people—so that they can become better adults and better leaders with those identities.

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