Japan’s ‘miracle town,’ with soaring birthrate amid demographic crisis

> One Tokyo newspaper for grade schoolers declared last month, “Emergency! Fewer children,” warning that the national birth rate had halved in four decades. On a recent field trip to her workplace, elementary school students peppered Iwasawa with questions about the difficulties of raising a family.

It's weird reading this, like the political consensus is approaching panic. Makes you wonder if the US will ever get to this point, doesn't seem like it

Two (minor) unusual things I noticed in this article:

"Schoolchildren learn how to cross the street safely in Japan" – this is an ancient image, judging from the cars.

Also, there's no mention of which prefecture (i.e. "state") that Nagi lies in. It's Okayama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagi,_Okayama).