Hirosaki-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about one hundred sixty-eight thousand (168,466 in 2020). From 177,086 in 2000 it fell by roughly nine thousand over twenty years, and a gentle decline continues.

What I want to note here is that the fall in children and the aging are advancing together. Those under 15 fell by more than eight thousand over twenty years, from 25,839 in 2000 to 17,417 in 2020. In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 19.3% to 32.0%, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share was 18.3% (2020) — a level fitting a regional city in which aging has advanced. The elementary schools rose from thirty-four to thirty-eight through the 2005 merger, then in recent years have fallen to thirty-three in line with the fall in children. The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.48 in fiscal 2023. The structure shows: its own tax revenue covers a little under half of expenditure, with reliance on the local allocation tax. The figure of the central city of Tsugaru, aging while contracting gently, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this form cannot be read without tracing back the history of the castle town and apples.

Hirosaki’s skeleton rests upon the castle town that a domain which unified Tsugaru built. At the end of the warring-states age, Tamenobu, the first lord, who unified the land of Tsugaru, planned the town layout and the building of a new castle at Takaoka — later Hirosaki. Carrying on his will, the second lord, Nobuhira, completed the castle in 1611, and the castle town of Hirosaki was born. Later both the place name and the castle name were changed to “Hirosaki.” Thereafter Hirosaki long prospered as the political, economic and cultural center of the Tsugaru region. A great castle and a castle town placed in a northern land — this is the starting point of this city.

In this castle town, one industry took root in the modern era. Apples. In 1875, an American teacher at a private school in Hirosaki is said to have given Western apples to his pupils at Christmas — held to be the first time apples came to this land. The climate and soil of the Tsugaru Plain suited cultivation, and the region centered on Hirosaki grew in time into the country’s foremost apple-producing belt. The castle town became also the center of an apple-producing region.

The castle town also holds the character of a university town. Hirosaki University, the only national university in Aomori Prefecture, is sited here, and together with its many high schools it is known as one of the leading school towns of Tohoku. Beginning as a castle town, becoming the center of an apple-producing region, and growing into a university town with a university — this city’s shape stands upon the history of being the center of Tsugaru.

What characterizes Hirosaki-shi is that, while being the central city of the Tsugaru region, both its population and its number of children go on falling gently. That appears as a steady contraction in the numbers of living infrastructure. The city’s elementary schools once rose to thirty-eight through the 2005 merger, but since then, in line with the fall in children, in recent years they have fallen to thirty-three.

The Childcare Waitlist has stayed at zero. But this is less the result of meeting demand than, in large part, an aspect in which the absolute number of children fell by more than eight thousand over twenty years, giving room in the capacity. The figure of a zero waitlist must be read not only as “ease of raising children,” but as a set with the background that the very number of children is thinning. Hirosaki, the political, economic and cultural center of Tsugaru, the center of an apple-producing region, and a university town as well — while holding all this centrality, it sees its children thin and its aging pass three in ten amid the outflow of the younger generation and the falling birth rate. The thickness of being a central city and the reality of contracting gently dwell together in the same single town.

In Hirosaki, several functions are layered upon the castle town. One is the history of a castle town built by a domain that unified Tsugaru — with Hirosaki Castle at its center, it has remained the political, economic and cultural center of the Tsugaru region. Another is its character as the center of the country’s foremost apple-producing belt, where apples raised by the climate and soil of the Tsugaru Plain have become one of the town’s industries. And it holds the character of a leading school town of Tohoku, with the only national university in Aomori Prefecture.

Hirosaki is a town in which a castle town built in a northern land has remained the center of Tsugaru. From castle town, to the center of an apple-producing region, to university town — the event by which “a domain that unified Tsugaru placed a great castle and a castle town in this land” gave rise to the standing of the center of Tsugaru, and drew in apples and schooling. More than the natural terrain, the centrality of the castle town the domain placed has shaped the outline and character of the town.