Maebashi-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 332,000 (332,149 in 2020). Over the five years from 336,154 in 2015, it fell by about four thousand. As a prefectural capital exceeding three hundred thousand, it has entered a phase of gentle decline.

The way of decreasing is steeper on the side of children. Those under 15 fell by over five thousand two hundred in five years, from 41,961 (2015) to 36,764 (2020). In the same span the share aged 65 and over rose from 27.1% to 29.0%, nearing three in ten. The structure is one in which, while the total population falls by four thousand, the children leave at a faster pace. The land price of residential areas is about 56,000 yen per m² (56,000 yen/m², 2026). The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.78, and the part below 1.0 is made up by the local allocation tax — this is not the superiority or inferiority of a municipality, but the very mechanism of local public finance, by which the nation levels the gap between tax source and expenditure. The household-with-children share is 19.2% (2020), and the Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025). What I want to note here is the rereading that a zero waitlist can also be the result of supply and demand balancing as the absolute number of children thins by over five thousand in five years. Why it took this form cannot be seen without going back over the history of the castle town, the prefectural capital, and raw silk.

Maebashi’s skeleton lies in three centralities — castle, prefectural government, and raw silk — piled up on the same place. In the Warring States period this land was called “Mayebashi.” In the Edo era the name was changed to “Maebashi,” and it opened as the castle town of the Maebashi Domain with Maebashi Castle as its core. Yet this castle town was not all fair weather. The castle was damaged by the erosion of the Tone River, and in 1767 the daimyo Matsudaira house moved to Kawagoe Castle, so that Maebashi became the domain of the Kawagoe Domain for ninety-nine years. The center of the castle town once left, and only in 1867 did Matsudaira Naokatsu return to the castle, restoring it at last to the Maebashi Domain.

The second foundation is becoming the prefectural capital. In 1881 the prefectural government of Gunma moved to Maebashi, and this town became the capital. From castle town to center of administration — the concentration of governing functions set the town’s second centrality.

The third foundation, and the one that made this town’s name known throughout the country, is raw silk. In 1870 the Maebashi Domain set up the domain-run Maebashi Filature, performing Italian-style reeling under the guidance of a Swiss engineer. This was the first machine-reeling filature in Japan, two years earlier than the founding of the Tomioka Silk Mill, known as a World Heritage Site. People who learned the technology here opened new filatures in various places, and Maebashi became the first hub spreading machine-reeling technology throughout the country. That the demand for raw silk grew with the opening of the port of Yokohama in 1859 backed this industry. The prefectural government moved into a castle town, and onto it the first machine reeling in Japan overlapped. On the same place by the bank of the Tone River, the castle, the prefectural government, and a machine reeling two years earlier than Tomioka piled up one after another.

What characterizes Maebashi-shi is that, while the total population falls by four thousand in five years, the number of children falls by over five thousand two hundred, faster still. When the decrease of children is faster than the decrease of the total, the town’s age composition tilts suddenly to the high-age side. In the same five years the share aged 65 and over rose from 27.1% to 29.0%, nearing three in ten.

This movement appears in the figures of living infrastructure in a distinctive form. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025), but to read this only as “proof of ease of child-rearing” is hasty. The household-with-children share is 19.2%, and since the absolute number of children thins by over five thousand in five years, the reading that the zero waitlist is the result of demand shrinking toward and balancing with supply cannot be excluded. A zero waitlist in a town where children increase and a zero waitlist in a town where children decrease have, with the same figure, opposite meanings. The children leave faster, the share of the elderly nears three in ten, and yet the waitlist holds at zero. In a prefectural capital where the three advance at once, the single phrase “zero waitlist” holds both faces — “room to spare” and “contraction” — at the same time. This figure too, unless read together with its background, has its meaning mistaken.

In Maebashi several faces piled up by the bank of the Tone River remain. One is the central district of the castle town with Maebashi Castle as its core, which began as a seat of governance opening by the bank of the Tone River. Another is the prefectural government of Gunma, placed in this town since 1881, concentrating administrative functions as the prefectural capital.

And the third is the history of a city of raw silk. The domain-run Maebashi Filature, the first machine-reeling filature in Japan, was placed in this land; machine reeling began two years earlier than the Tomioka Silk Mill, and it became a hub spreading the technology throughout the country. In Maebashi too there still remain memorial facilities and modernization heritage relating to raw silk, conveying its character as a “city of raw silk” to this day. From castle town to prefectural capital, and further to a city of the first machine reeling in Japan. The same hub by the bank of the Tone River has swapped on different functions era by era. Whether one sees the castle, the prefectural government, or the memory of a filature two years earlier than Tomioka — the same hub by the bank of the Tone River has swapped on different functions era by era, and that three-layer overlap is Maebashi’s skeleton.