I moved to this area in 2008, and remember when all of this mess was starting! At first, I thought the area around Tennoji Station was a terrible (and a bit scary!) monument to urban blight and neglect. It seemed like construction would continue forever! When Q's Mall opened, it was quite a bright spark, soon followed by Harukas - do you remember the countdown on the building in the weeks before it opened? That was wonderful! ...Now, in 2024, I'm very much a lover of Osaka City history, and I'm sad that I did not get the chance to visit the Abenobashi shotengai before it was closed. I am happy that the area in general has improved, such as giving Tennoji Park a make-over into Ten-Shiba, and reworking the area around Festival Gate and Shin-Sekai, but I fear that there is a little too much gentrification happening, that may destroy the character of the surrounding neighorhoods. Even Tobita Shinchi looks like an amusement park now, complete with foreign tour groups parading through it, and the Dobutsuen-mae shotengai is being overwhelmed and taken over by Chinese karaoke bars and tourist hostels. I wish there were a way to salvage these places of history before they're eventually steamrolled for another Starbucks to go in. I understand that much of the area is disheveled and needs infrastructure repair, but I will be very sad if I live to see those remaining shotengai and the businesses within them destroyed and replaced by cookie cutter corporate shops you can find anywhere in the world. Then, if they remove the chin-den, there will no longer be a trace of old Abeno or Nishinari. Thank you for posting this - you're one of my favorite channels! ❤
