In 2013, according to a Japan National Government survey, Yokosuka topped the list of cities whose populations declined due to people moving away to other places. A likely reason for the exodus being more jobs, opportunities, and excitement up in Yokohama and Tokyo...
Yokosuka's population peaked in 1992, with 435,337 residents.
However, by 2018, the number had declined to 395,000.
Also, as of 2018, for the population of Japan, the percentage of citizens over 65 years old was 28% .... But, for Yokosuka, it was 31% .... Lots of elderly residents, for sure...
What makes things even more challenging is that, back in the day, due to the lack of flat land near the naval harbor area (i.e., where most people worked), houses and apartments were build on-top of near-by bluffs and slopes .... And pretty much any bit of land, not matter how small or strangely-shaped, was used for that purpose...
So, Yokosuka's hills are jam-packed with homes, and many cannot be accessed by cars, requiring long walks up steep paths and stairways .... And as the folks who live in those places get older & more feeble, they are no longer physically able to trudge up to their dwellings .... So, eventually they move out and the result is a large number of abandoned "ghost houses", which are so old and inconvenient that no one wants to live in them...
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