Misawa-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about thirty-nine thousand (39,152 in 2020). Its course is a gentle decline. From 42,495 in 2000, through 42,425 in 2005, 41,258 in 2010, 40,196 in 2015, to 39,152 in 2020, more than three thousand were lost over twenty years.

Look inside and the shape of a town on the Pacific coast holding a base appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 15.8% in 2000 to 26.5% in 2020, but while many regional cities approach four-tenths, this one does not reach three-tenths — comparatively young for a city in Tohoku. The share of households with children was 20.9% in 2020, and the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.50 in fiscal 2023 — its own tax revenue covers only about half of expenditure, with large reliance on the local allocation tax. A town open to the Pacific gently loses population, yet keeps a youthfulness unusual for a city in Tohoku. Where that youthfulness comes from becomes visible when you trace the history of the shore that took off across the Pacific, the airfield, and the base.

This town’s frame is set by a landform opening toward the Pacific and by an airfield built upon it — a history tied to the sky and the sea. The starting layer is the shore open to the Pacific. From this town’s Pacific-facing shore, on an autumn day in 1931, a single small airplane set out on an attempt to fly across the sea to the continent without coming down on the way. Over some forty hours it crossed eight thousand kilometers of sea and reached the far shore. It was the first non-stop crossing of the Pacific in the world, and the shore of that departure remains even now as a memory of the town. A broad, flat upland and a landform open to the Pacific became the stage for a challenge to the sky.

The next layer is the military airfield. In the late 1930s the navy began building an airfield on this flat upland, and soon the airfield of an air group opened. This airfield, which supported the years of war, was after the war requisitioned by the military of a country across the sea and rebuilt as its facility. Thus a quarter where people of that country across the sea live and work formed in this town, and the town took on an international cast. The road by which it became a city also mirrors the town. In the late 1950s the town that had grown together with the airfield once took another name, then chose its old place name for the city’s name and became a city the same day. The shore that took off across the Pacific, the military airfield, and the base of a country across the sea — this town’s form stands atop the history of sky and sea held by an upland open to the Pacific.

What sets Misawa apart is that, while it holds the history of an airfield and a base on the Pacific coast, it gently loses population yet keeps a youthfulness comparatively unusual for a city in Tohoku. From 42,495 in 2000 to 39,152 in 2020, more than three thousand were lost over twenty years. It has fallen, but the width of that fall is not large. That people connected to the base, and people of the country across the sea, live and form places of work in the town has kept a coming and going of people, and a certain share of younger generations has stayed — this can be read as having held off a steep drop in population. That the share aged 65 and over did not reach three-tenths at 26.5% in 2020, keeping a youthfulness within the cities of Tohoku, is one expression of that.

On the other hand, the Childcare Waitlist was zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.50 is a level whose own tax revenue covers only about half of expenditure, with large reliance on the local allocation tax. As a town holding a base, it keeps a coming and going of people and a youthfulness, yet this mirrors the limit to its own tax base. The population falls gently, aging does not reach three-tenths, and fiscal strength is weak. In particular, the lowness of aging will be misread unless read together with the numbers of population and finance. One making — a Pacific-coast town holding a base — binds these numbers not in scattered directions but into a single thread.

In Misawa several functions tied to sky and sea overlap. One is its history as the place from which, off a Pacific-facing shore, the first non-stop crossing of the Pacific in the world took off — leaving in the town a memory of a challenge to the sky. The other is its character of holding a quarter that took on an international cast, where a military airfield built on a flat upland became after the war the base of a country across the sea. And the landform of a flat upland open to the Pacific drew the challenge to the sky, the airfield, and the base to this place.

From a flat upland facing the Pacific, an airplane once took off across the sea, and now people of a country across the sea live and work in this town. A challenge to the sky, a military airfield, and an internationally cast quarter rest, era upon era, on the same upland. Whether to read this town off in the single word "base town," or to read it as the continuation of the shore that took off across the Pacific, depends on how the one who visits walks it.