Ichikawa-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 497,000 (496,676 in 2020). Over the twenty years from 448,642 in 2000, it rose by close to fifty thousand. Like neighboring Funabashi and Nagareyama, it is a city that has grown its population in northwestern Chiba Prefecture facing Tokyo.

Looking inside, the aging advances gently. The share aged 65 and over rose from 11.5% (2000) to 20.8% (2020). Those under 15 fell by about twenty-five hundred, from 59,824 (2000) to 57,265 (2020). Behind a total rising by fifty thousand, the number of children thins slightly and the center of gravity has moved to the high-age side. The land price of residential areas is about 279,000 yen per m², a higher level than Funabashi and Nagareyama, seen later. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 1.07 — exceeding 1.0 means that, without relying on the local allocation tax, it can cover standard expenditure with its own tax revenue alone, a thing few in the prefecture. The Childcare Waitlist was zero most recently. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the plateau where the provincial capital was placed and of proximity to Tokyo.

Ichikawa’s skeleton is formed of the area facing Tokyo across the Edo River, and the Konodai plateau that juts out inside it. In ancient times, the provincial government office of Shimosa Province was placed on this plateau, and provincial temples for monks and nuns were built by the edict of Emperor Shomu, so that the Ichikawa area became the political and cultural center of Shimosa Province. Nearby Mama was known even at the capital as a place sung in the Manyoshu. What historical geography would call “a center of administration” was this town’s first foundation. In medieval times Konodai Castle is said to have been built around the area of Satomi Park, and the plateau was used also as a military stronghold.

The second foundation is the face of learning layered in the modern era. From the Meiji era on, the Konodai area was used as army land, but after the war’s end that vast land was converted into university campuses. Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Chiba University of Commerce, Wayo Women’s University and others stand in rows on the plateau, and Konodai reorganized its role from a town of the army to a town of learning. It is as if the ancient center where the nation’s office was placed revived in the modern era as a place where learning gathers.

The third foundation is the locational advantage of postwar proximity to Tokyo. The town that enacted city status in 1934 through the merger of Ichikawa, Yawata, Nakayama and Kokubun, by the closeness of distance — cross the single Edo River and it is Tokyo — drew in households seeking the convenience of commuting to work and school, and increased its population as a bedtown. The three functions of provincial capital, learning, and housing are piled in layers across the eras upon the same plateau and plain.

What characterizes Ichikawa-shi is that, while the total population increases by fifty thousand, the number of children slightly decreases. It appears in the figures of living infrastructure in a gentle form, different both from the severe consolidation common to regional cities of population decline and from the expansion of a Nagareyama. The elementary schools in the city went from 42 to 41, nearly flat over twenty years. As the number of children gently thins, the school network too has not moved greatly and has nearly held its present state.

The Childcare Waitlist is zero most recently, but this zero differs both from the “zero that is the result of the absolute number of children thinning out,” common to regional cities of population decline, and from Nagareyama’s “zero that is the result of keeping up with ever-growing demand.” In a residential city of proximity to Tokyo where children gently decrease, the share of the elderly increases, and yet the total population rises by fifty thousand, the waitlist figure too settles to a low level. Even with the same “zero waitlisted,” the way of reading changes entirely depending on whether children are increasing or decreasing behind it. In the same northwestern Chiba Prefecture where neighboring Nagareyama is greatly increasing its children, Ichikawa draws another curve — that difference does not come into view from the single word “zero.”

Ichikawa, as a town opened on the plateau where the provincial capital was placed and along the Edo River facing Tokyo, holds functions of its own. One is the group of universities gathered on the Konodai plateau, where the place that the ancient provincial capital was placed is used, from the modern era on, as a base of learning — Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Chiba University of Commerce, Wayo Women’s University and others. The plateau that was the center of administration still functions as a plateau of learning. Another is the Edo River boundary itself. The closeness — cross the river and it is Edogawa Ward of Tokyo — has characterized this town as a residential area within the 10–20 kilometer ring of the city center.

Ichikawa moved from the ancient center of Shimosa Province, through a city of learning, to a residential area near Tokyo — the landform of “the plateau where the provincial capital was placed, and along the Edo River facing Tokyo” has swapped on different functions era by era. The nation’s office, a town of the army, a town of universities, and a residential area. Even though the role changed four times, the position of the plateau and the river did not move. Because there was an unmoving location, it could call in the next function — Ichikawa’s history can be read that way.