What is sustainable rural development in the age of the global economy? Today, in most advanced industrial societies, rural communities are in crisis. Based on in-depth field interviews with villagers in six rural localities on the fringe of Tokyo, the global city, this study reveals the limitations of government-led green tourism and other mura-okoshi (rural and community development) initiatives often called post modern/alternative and what it means to conventional economic policy. The general finding is that only exceptional localities with privileged conditions of location and resources can survive successfully, and thus their policy cannot be not readily generalized.