Home › News ›

Friday Funny: Cat Key to Town's Economic Development

Posted by: Nate Berg
Thanks to: Cate Miller
10 October 2008 - 2:00pm

A stray cat born and raised at a Japanese train station has been named its official stationmaster -- and become a tourist attraction that's successfully boosted the local economy by more than $10 million.

"It is rather Tama's irresistible charm which has brought tourists flocking in their thousands to the western city of Kinokawa to see the feline worker patrolling in the uniform of her office -- a Wakayama Electric Railway cap."

"With 55,000 more people having used the Kishigawa Line than would normally be expected, Tama is being credited with a contribution to the local economy calculated to have reached as much as 1.1 billion yen (10.44 million dollars) in 2007 alone, according to a study announced last week."

Full Story: Tama is the purr-fect antidote to financial gloom: study
Source: AFP, October 5, 2008
»
Bookmark and Share
“
New Suburbanism is not a new design paradigm that seeks to compete with or discredit principles of New Urbanism. Instead, our perspective represents a broad-based attempt to find the best, most practical ways to develop and redevelop suburban communities.
”