Meet the youngest-ever mayor in Japan's history | Ryosuke Takashima

**Elise Hu** (0:03)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
Most of us have likely had the same thought. My one voice doesn't really matter.

**Ryosuke Takashima** (0:16)
Sometimes citizens think, oh, this is my personal problem or personal issue. So it's the kind of waste of time to speak up. But this is not true.
If someone speaks up and others agree with it, that personal issue becomes social issue.

**Elise Hu** (0:37)
That's Ryosuke Takashima, the 2026 TED fellow who was elected as mayor of the city of Aishia at just 26, making him Japan's youngest ever mayor. He built his approach to leadership around that idea that the moment you speak up and someone agrees, your personal problem becomes a shared one, and shared problems are the ones that actually get solved.

**Ryosuke Takashima** (1:00)
For me, politics is not like profession or the kind of system. It's a work of deciding something together with everyone, every single citizens, when we cannot all agree. And there's a kind of process is politics.

**Elise Hu** (1:17)
TED fellows are early stage innovators that TED finds and supports. You may have heard from some of them on this show before, because I am a big fan of this program. It's a community of more than 500 TED fellows around the globe that impacts more than 200 million people a year. They're not just improving broken systems. They are building a better future. In Ryosuke's case, his method comes down to listening to as many people as possible, especially the ones who usually go unheard. Why?
Because he isn't just trying to improve a broken system. He's trying to build a better future for everyone. He's challenging the idea that government runs a city and the people who live there must just go along with it. In this episode, he shares how he tried to turn his city into a place where ordinary people, not officials, decide what their community becomes. And stick around after for Ryosuke's conversation with TED Fellows Program Director Lily James Olds. They get into how a self-described introvert ended up running for office at 26, what it's like to lead a city where a third of residents are older than you by decades, and why Ryosuke thinks trust between people and their government has to be rebuilt one conversation at a time. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now here's our TED story and conversation of the day.

**Ryosuke Takashima** (2:49)
Sometimes citizens think, oh, this is my personal problem or personal issue. So it's the kind of waste of time to speak up. But this is not true. If someone speak up and others agree with it, that personal issue becomes social issue. With my administration, the city government actually did not make a town vision. Instead of that, citizens create a vision by themselves. And we, local government, support the process. Because cities is citizens.
Cities is not the government.
I'm Takashima Ryosuke, the youngest mayor in Japanese history.
I'm a mayor of Ashiya City.
I'm mayor, but I'm not a politician. My stance is actually very simple. I just listen to as many voices as possible, especially younger generations. The reason is very simple. Students under 18 couldn't vote. So, I visited schools, like junior high school and elementary school to hear their voice. But it's so hard for kids, for students to speak up their opinions to mayors, even if I am the youngest mayor. So, what I did is eating school lunch together.
And I repeatedly visit schools, and I don't want to see a formal visit, rather a casual visit, casual chat with teachers and students. I could create a kind of friendly atmosphere, and I got more information rather than a formal visit. For example, some students told me their school gym is so hot, so we decided to install air conditioner to every single school gym. I wanted to make school a place to learn and practice democracy, and it's all about communication and dialogue. I wanted to encourage people to speak up and listen to their voices and then reflect their voice. The main method is we hold dialogue meetings. It's a meeting with me, mayor, and citizens. Sit down together in a circle and talk with each other. And sometimes mayors do not even speak up, just listen or facilitate what citizens want to talk. So, for example, Ashiya is a very healthy city. Recently, we had the world's oldest person in Ashiya city. Around 30 percent of citizens are over 65 In the dialogue meetings, I heard elderly people said our community center was too busy to ask some questions about their care. So I wanted to increase the number of community centers, but we needed some budget. So before, we had a monetary gift for elderly people. So we decided to change our monetary gift system from the one-time monetary gift to creating a new community center, where elderly people and their families get some advice on wellness. Some people say monetary gift is a kind of symbol of respect. So some people argue that I had no respect to elderly people. But through the dialogue sessions, I explained why this is important, and why this actually benefited for elderly people.