Recently the ‘City Building’ (machi-zukuri) movement, which seeks to distance itself from Chikuho's past ‘negative’ experience, has become dominant within Chikuho politics. Many of the past violent confrontations between miners and company officials, police and yakuza have been ignored, unions are remembered as ‘socially disruptive forces’, and the legendary warmth of the coal communities is forgotten as local governments attempt to throw off the stigma of the coal years. This rewriting of history is to facilitate new economic and social plans, which are sanctioned by both the prefectural and national governments. The intention of those who thus rewrite Chikuho history is to soothe the fears of would-be investors in the region.

Analyses of the coal companies' roles in the development of Chikuho's economy have been well documented, especially in academic journals and local histories. However, the withdrawal of companies' economic support from the region and the reasons for the subsequent economic and social decline of the area for the most part have been ignored. And while numerous studies have emphasised the economic role of the companies, studies that deal with the people who worked for the companies are rare.

Although it is reasonable to say that the majority of young people in the area are aware of the region's coal background, few have experienced the coal industry at first hand. These young people are becoming more and more dependent on the education system to teach them about the past. To a large extent this is because the tradition of oral folk history passed on by senior members of the family to younger members is being eroded as society moves away from the extended family, once common in Chikuho, to the nuclear family geared to the electronic media.