Three years have passed since the Kyushu Shinkansen’s Kagoshima Route fully opened, and the effects on land prices along the line are starting to emerge. According to land prices released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on Jan. 1, the land prices in areas around JR Hakata Station have increased in rapid succession, and for the first time in 23 years, the price of residential land in all seven wards of Fukuoka has increased. Fukuoka City is now home to the top 10 priciest parcels of land in all of Kyushu. On a similar note, the price of residential land in Chikugo City, where Chikugo-Funagoya Station is located, rose for the first time in 15 years, and Kumamoto Prefecture had four times as many districts with increased land prices than before. Meanwhile, in Kagoshima Prefecture, only one district reported an uptick in land prices, and the land prices around Kagoshima Chuo Station remained the same. The initial development rush in Kagoshima after the partial opening in 2004 seems to have cooled off. Source: Nishinippon Shimbun 3/19
