Yonezawa-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 81,000 (81,252 in 2020). From 95,396 in 2000 it has gone on falling over twenty years by some fourteen thousand, with no sharp step, at a steady slope. With no large merger and no large inflow, the generation already living here simply grows older while the young leave — the gentle, unstoppable form of shrinkage typical of a regional city in a basin.

Looking into the makeup, the children are falling faster than the total population. Those under 15 fell from 14,139 in 2000 to 8,881 in 2020 — down by some five thousand two hundred over twenty years, nearly forty percent. The share aged 65 and over rose from 21.0% in 2000 to 31.1% in 2020. Households with children were 19.9% (2020), the childcare waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.57 in FY2023. The figure of a regional city where the castle town’s built-up area is held while the children thin faster appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the history of the Uesugi family’s castle town.

Yonezawa’s skeleton is set by a single daimyo family that was moved into this basin after Sekigahara. In 1601, Uesugi Kagekatsu, who had sided with the Western army at the Battle of Sekigahara and had his lands greatly cut, entered Yonezawa Castle. From then until the abolition of the domains, for about two hundred and seventy years, Yonezawa Castle was the seat of generations of the Uesugi family, and Yonezawa walked on as its castle town. A household whose lands had been cut still had to keep a body of retainers within a limited territory — that weight set the direction of what was to come for this town.

That weight reached its extreme in the late Edo era. The domain’s finances are said to have been among the most impoverished in the whole country. The one who rebuilt them was the ninth lord, Uesugi Yozan. Yozan led the way in thorough frugality, asked his retainers also to live simply, revived the once-closed domain school and poured effort into education. And he encouraged sericulture and weaving, and sought to rebuild the finances by having the whole domain produce goods. Rebuilding an impoverished domain through thrift, education and the promotion of industry — that reform left the town a single pillar of industry.

That pillar is Yonezawa-ori. The textiles Yozan encouraged carried their beauty and skill into the modern era, and are now designated among the country’s Traditional Crafts. Weaving work that began in order to support the household finances of the retainers of the castle town remained as an industry bearing the town’s name. The frugality and industry by which a household whose lands had been cut tried to survive within a limited territory left this basin two legacies — the learning that began with the domain school, and Yonezawa-ori.

What characterizes Yonezawa is that, while the castle town’s built-up area is held, the number of children is falling faster than the total population. Over twenty years the total fell by about fifteen percent, while those under 15 fell by nearly forty percent. A thinning of births and an outflow of the young generation work at the same time, and the layer of children thins first — the form typical of a regional city in a basin.

The figures for living infrastructure also mirror this shrinkage. The elementary schools moved for a long time at twenty-seven, then, in step with the falling number of children, consolidation advanced, and in recent years they have fallen to around fifteen. This is a shrinking of the school network that reflects the decline of children itself, not a merger. The childcare waitlist has moved at zero in recent years, but this includes the aspect of being the consequence of a fall in the absolute number of children wanting a place. The town that Uesugi Kagekatsu entered, that Yozan rebuilt as a domain and that left Yonezawa-ori, is now in a shrinkage in which, while the castle town’s skeleton is held, the layer of children thins first. The total population falls gently, the children fall faster, and aging passes three in ten. It is not an external shock such as a merger or a factory moving in, but the inner accumulation of births and out-migration, that quietly moves these numbers in the same direction.

The layers Yonezawa holds as a castle town are not one. One is the history of the castle town that the Uesugi family, with its lands cut after Sekigahara, used as its seat for two hundred and seventy years, where the history of keeping a body of retainers within a limited territory is said to have led to the town’s temper of valuing thrift. Another is that the textiles encouraged by Yozan’s administrative reform remain into the present as the industry of Yonezawa-ori. And the soil of valuing education that began with the domain school has been carried into a place of modern engineering learning.

Yonezawa is a castle town reworked by frugality and textiles. From Uesugi Kagekatsu’s entry, to Yozan’s administrative reform, to the industry of Yonezawa-ori, and on to a shrinking regional city in a basin — the history that “a daimyo family whose lands had been cut sought a way to survive within a limited territory in thrift and the promotion of industry” drew to this basin the industry of Yonezawa-ori and the learning that began with the domain school. The disadvantage of having its lands cut has, instead, left the town the legacies of frugality, education and the promotion of industry.