Popular article about many Japanese teen girls choosing to visit Shin-Okubo instead of Takeshita Dori recently. Takeshita has been gentrified for tourists & rent is super high in Harajuku now. Shin-Okubo is more affordable and packed with small Korean restaurants & shops... https://twitter.com/Toyokeizai/status/1326703475963486214

In addition to the "4th wave" Korean boom that's going on in Japan now, many of the shops that attracted teen girls to Harajuku have been driven out of the neighborhood by rent prices, replaced by more generic/international shops that do not appeal to jr. high school girls...

This is playing out all over Tokyo, but Takeshita Dori has been hit hard as it's one of Japan's busiest tourist streets. The back streets of Harajuku (Urahara) have long hosted more sophisticated/expensive boutiques that appeal to a different crowd, so they have fared better...

Small brands and shops in Urahara have also felt the impact of increasing rent prices, with some fleeing to other areas like Koenji. This was all happening long before COVID-19. Since the epidemic started in the spring of 2020, many independent shops are fighting to survive...

Nobody knows yet if the loss of many teen girls to Shin-Okubo is a trend (Japan is in the middle of another trendy Korean wave) or something that will have a longer lasting impact on Harajuku...

This younger crowd comes to Harajuku mostly for the food trends (bubble tea, pancakes, etc.), trendy fashion (WEGO/Spinns/etc.), and fun rather than the experimental fashion Harajuku is famous for. However, some of them become part of the fashion scene as they get older...

We've seen a number of booms that brought large numbers of teen Japanese girls to Harajuku (Kyary, Peco, etc.) and those generally help grow the fashion scene several years later. Time will tell how the current Shin-Okubo boom impacts the Harajuku fashion scene, but...

One thing is very clear, the tourism boom and resulting sky high rent prices are having a negative impact on the fashion scene and culture that made Harajuku famous around the world. Not sure how that can be fixed, but hope articles like this get those in power to think about it.