Kuki-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 151,000 (150,582 in 2020). What I want to note first of all is that the more-than-doubling sudden rise from 72,522 in 2005 to 154,310 in 2010 is not the result of people naturally increasing. It owes to a new merger that created a single new city with three towns in 2010, and the step in the figure mirrors that merger.

Upon that, looking inside after the merger, the population fell gently from 154,310 in 2010 to 150,582 in 2020, and the share aged 65 and over rose from 20.8% in 2010 to 30.6% in 2020, passing three in ten. Those under 15 fell from 19,009 after the merger to 16,537. The household-with-children share is 19.2% (2020). The elementary schools rose from ten to twenty-three through the merger, and have since moved at twenty-two. The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.81 in fiscal 2023. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the shrine town and the merger.

Kuki’s skeleton is set where the Heisei merger layered a single municipal area upon old towns and shrines that had been scattered in the midst of the Kanto plain. The former Washinomiya town, included in the present municipal area, holds Washinomiya Shrine, said to be one of the oldest great shrines of the Kanto region, and an old history as a shrine-front town that grew around that shrine. A shrine gathers people, and a town opens before its gate — an old way of forming, in which a place of faith becomes the core of a town, is here.

This area was also blessed with the transport convenience of the Kanto plain; in the modern era and after, railways and trunk roads ran through, and together with the surrounding towns it held its population as residential and agricultural land. The former Kuki-shi, the former Shobu town, the former Kurihashi town, and the former Washinomiya town each held a central built-up area or settlement of their own while existing side by side.

The new merger by which these one city and three towns became one was in March 2010. The former Kuki-shi merged with Shobu town, Kurihashi town, and Washinomiya town, and a new Kuki-shi was established. This is a typical case, within the flow of the Heisei great mergers, of one city and three adjoining towns bundling their municipal areas. In the merged city, the centers of each of the former four municipalities stand side by side. Towns including the shrine-front town of one of the Kanto region’s old shrines were bundled into one municipal area by the Heisei merger — this town’s form stands upon the history of the shrine town and the Heisei merger.

What characterizes Kuki-shi is that, after the municipal area widened at a stroke through the merger, the population falls gently and the aging passes three in ten. It appears in the figures of living infrastructure as both merger and shrinkage. The elementary schools in the city rose at a stroke from ten to twenty-three through the merger, and have since moved at twenty-two. This is, rather than consolidation, a form in which the school networks of several former municipalities were bundled into one city by the merger.

The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. But this is, rather than the result of satisfying demand, strongly an aspect of room arising in capacity as the number of children gently thins. The figure of zero waitlisted must not be read only as “ease of raising children,” but as a set with the movement of the number of children itself. In a municipal area widened by the merger, the centers of each of the former four municipalities remain dispersed, and as a whole the population falls gently and the aging advances. Even with the same “zero waitlisted,” the meaning becomes entirely opposite between a zero where people gathered and demand was satisfied and a zero where children thinned and capacity was left over. Kuki’s is closer to the latter.

Kuki, as a town opened in the midst of the Kanto plain, holds several functions of its own. One is Washinomiya Shrine of the former Washinomiya town, one of the Kanto region’s old shrines, whose old history as a shrine-front town is inscribed in a corner of the municipal area. Another is the centers of each of the former four municipalities bundled by the 2010 merger, where the built-up areas of the former municipalities of Kuki, Shobu, Kurihashi and Washinomiya coexist at various places across the broad municipal area.

Kuki is a town where the Heisei merger bundled into one the old towns and shrines that had been scattered in the midst of the Kanto plain. From the shrine-front town of an old shrine, to the coexistence of adjoining towns, and on to a single municipal area — the condition “an old shrine town and the towns around it adjoining on the Kanto plain” was bundled into one city by the Heisei merger. The landform did not decide the town’s form. The centripetal force of an old shrine, and the wave of mergers of the Heisei age. Because those two overlapped, today’s broad municipal area is called by one name.