Kushiro-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 165,000 (165,077 in 2020). From 191,739 in 2000 it lost close to twenty-seven thousand in twenty years, a steady decline continuing. It should be noted that the 2005 merger took in the towns of Akan and Onbetsu, so this figure also includes the widening of the city area by that amount.

What is worth seeing here is that the fall in children and the aging are both advancing rapidly together. Those under 15 fell from 27,055 in 2000 to 16,634 in 2020, more than ten thousand fewer in twenty years. Over the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 16.7% to 34.1%, passing well beyond a third. The household-with-children rate is 15.7% (2020), low even among the regional cities where aging has advanced. The number of elementary schools went from twenty-nine in the 2000s up to thirty-four for a time with the merger, then down in recent years to twenty-five as the children thinned. The childcare waitlist has been zero in recent years; the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.45 in fiscal 2023. Own tax revenue covers less than half of expenditure, and a structure leaning on the local allocation tax shows through. The figure of eastern Hokkaido’s central city, growing old as it shrinks rapidly, appears in the numbers. Why this shape arises cannot be read without tracing back the origins of coal and the port.

Kushiro’s skeleton is set upon a modern industry of coal and a port. In this area, around the close of the Edo period, the digging of coal that lay exposed along the shoreline is held to be the beginning of coal mining in Hokkaido. In time, in 1920, the Taiheiyo Coal Mine was founded and full-scale mining began. Around the same time, in 1901, the first paper-pulp mill in Hokkaido went into operation. Dig coal, make paper, and ship them out from the port — Kushiro was a town raised by such coastal industry.

What held up this industry was the port that opened onto the Pacific. Kushiro Port became the shipping-out point for the goods of eastern Hokkaido, a node sending out coal, paper and marine products. Around the port, a coastal industrial city took shape, where paper mills, marine processing and the coal mines ran together. Sending out coal, paper and fish from the port — this was the character of modern Kushiro.

But that industrial structure changed greatly with the turn of the twenty-first century. In 2002 the Taiheiyo Coal Mine, with its eighty-odd years of history, closed, and mining was handed on to Kushiro Coal Mine, continued at a reduced scale. One of the town’s foundations, the coal mine, greatly shrank its role. Meanwhile the northeast of the town adjoins Kushiro Marsh National Park, where a vast marshland spreads right up to the edge of the built-up area. Prosperous on coal and a port, passing through the closure of the mine, and backed now by the marsh — this town’s form stands upon the origin of a modern coastal industry.

What characterizes Kushiro-shi is that, while it is the central city of eastern Hokkaido, its population and its children both fall rapidly, and aging passes well beyond a third. Those under 15 fell by more than ten thousand in twenty years, and the household-with-children rate, at 15.7%, is low even among regional cities. This reads as the sign that, amid the industrial shift symbolized by the closure of the coal mine that had been the town’s foundation, the outflow of the younger generations has continued.

The living-infrastructure numbers mirror this rapid shrinkage too. The number of elementary schools went from twenty-nine in the 2000s up to thirty-four for a time with the merger, then down in recent years to twenty-five as the children thinned. The fall in children across the wide city area bundled by the merger showed up directly in the school network. The childcare waitlist has held at zero. But this carries less the aspect of demand being met than the aspect of the absolute number of children falling greatly and slack arising in capacity. A coastal industrial city prosperous on coal and a port, passing through the turning point of the mine’s closure, grows old as it shrinks rapidly. The population falls, the children fall greatly, the share of the elderly passes well beyond a third — these do not occur separately; they crowd in at once upon the central city of eastern Hokkaido after the industrial footing came away. In the gap of those four schools, from twenty-nine down to twenty-five, that simultaneity is carved.

The functions Kushiro holds are piled upon two conditions the sea gave it. One is its character as a coastal industrial city built around a port opened onto the Pacific, holding food and pharmaceutical plants, power stations and the like, with Kushiro Port selected as an international strategic bulk port handling grain. The other is the origin of coal, going back to the beginning of coal mining in Hokkaido, where, after the closure of the Taiheiyo Coal Mine, mining still continues at a shrinking scale. And Kushiro Marsh National Park, spreading right up to the edge of the built-up area, conveys to this day the nature peculiar to this town.

From coal on the shore, to a coastal industry of port, paper and mines, and on to the industrial shift after the mine’s closure. The two natural conditions — a port opened onto the Pacific, and coal exposed along the shore — drew coastal industry into this town. If so, then once that industry shifts, the town too changes its form — Kushiro’s rise and fall is the long aftereffect of the natural conditions given to it at the start.

Lay out Kushiro’s numbers and the indicators of a rapidly shrinking central city of eastern Hokkaido line up: population decline, a great fall in children, aging beyond a third, a fiscal capacity of 0.45. But what I (Atlas) want to read through the eye of accounting is that this town’s shrinkage overlaps with the shift in its industrial structure. The coastal industrial city, beginning with coal on the shore and prosperous on port, paper and mines, passed through the great turning point of the Taiheiyo Coal Mine’s closure. When the industry that was the town’s foundation shrinks, the outflow of the younger generations and the fall in children advance at once. Kushiro’s numbers mirror that overlap.

What is striking is that this town’s present standing can be traced back to a wholly accidental natural condition — coal that lay exposed on the shore in the late Edo period. Black coal showing its face at the water’s edge — that chance alone summoned the beginning of coal mining in Hokkaido, summoned a port, summoned a paper mill, and raised a coastal industrial city of one hundred ninety thousand. And in 2002, when the Taiheiyo Coal Mine closed and the coal that had been the starting point shrank its role, the town began to shrink at the same speed. The fiscal capacity of 0.45, the elementary schools cut from twenty-nine to twenty-five — trace their origins and they arrive at a single shoreline. A single lump of coal that someone found about a hundred sixty-five years ago still, quietly, draws even now the outline of the living of the people who reside in this town.