Sakura-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 169,000 (168,743 in 2020). This town’s population has no step from a merger; after long holding flat from 170,934 in 2000 to 172,739 in 2015, it turned to a gentle decline toward 2020. It is the curve of a mature suburban city that has crossed its peak gently, without large rises or falls.

Looking inside, behind the stability of the total population, the children are decreasing. Those under 15 fell by a little over fifty-eight hundred over twenty years, from 24,445 in 2000 to 18,589 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 12.7% in 2000 to 32.6% in 2020, up two-tenths over twenty years, past three in ten. This speed of aging is characteristic of a mature suburban city, where a generation that moved in all at once has aged together. The household-with-children share is 19.5% (2020), the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.86 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a mature suburban city, holding its total while aging rapidly, shows in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of a castle town and Dutch learning.

Sakura’s skeleton is decided by a single castle set upon a plateau overlooking Lake Inba. From 1611, Doi Toshikatsu, a senior councilor esteemed by Tokugawa Ieyasu, took several years to build Sakura Castle and ordered a castle town around it. As a stronghold guarding the east of Edo, Sakura walked as a castle town and military city where hereditary feudal lords entered in succession. The town plan of the castle and the samurai residences was the town’s first foundation.

To that castle town, one more face was added. In 1843, Sato Taizen, a physician of Dutch medicine who had opened a school of Dutch medicine in Edo, was invited by the Sakura domain, moved to this land, and opened “Sakura Juntendo,” which combined a school of Dutch medicine with a clinic. Those who studied Western medicine gathered here, and Sakura became known as an advanced place of Dutch learning, spoken of together with Nagasaki as “Nagasaki in the west, Sakura in the east.” While a castle town, this town came to hold the two characters of also being a place of learning Western medicine.

And entering the modern era, that tradition of learning was carried on in a different form. In 1983, on the castle site where Sakura Castle had stood, a national museum was opened that comprehensively researches and exhibits the history, folklore, and archaeology of Japan. The castle site, this time, became a place of learning and research. Beginning with the castle town of Doi Toshikatsu, known for the Dutch learning of Sakura Juntendo, and holding a museum on the castle site — this town’s form stands upon the history of a castle town and learning.

What characterizes Sakura-shi is that, holding its total population long without a merger, the aging advances markedly fast. That the aging rate rose two-tenths over twenty years, past three in ten, mirrors how a generation that moved in all at once during the suburban development from the high-growth period has aged together. Even with the total stable, inside it the same mountain of a generation slides over into the elderly layer just as it is — a form common to mature suburban cities near the city center.

The figures of living infrastructure too mirror this shift. The elementary schools have long moved in the low twenties, and since the 2000s have been stable at around twenty-three. Because the total population does not move greatly, the school network too has not greatly risen or fallen. But the number of children attending those schools fell by a little over fifty-eight hundred over twenty years. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. The total population flat to slightly declining, the children decreasing, the aging advancing fast. Looking only at the single figure of the total, the quiet sliding of the generations inside is never seen.

Sakura, as a town opened on a plateau overlooking Lake Inba, holds several functions of its own. One is its history as a castle town and military city centered on Sakura Castle built by Doi Toshikatsu, with a past as a hereditary domain’s seat guarding the east of Edo. Another is its character as an advanced place of Dutch learning and Western medicine beginning with Sakura Juntendo — the tradition of learning spoken of as “Nagasaki in the west, Sakura in the east.” And because a national history museum was placed on that castle site, the castle site is carried on to this day as a place of learning and research.

Sakura is a plateau town where a castle town and learning overlap. From the castle town of Doi Toshikatsu, to the Dutch learning of Sakura Juntendo, to the museum on the castle site, and on to a mature suburban city near the city center — the history of “a place of learning Western medicine grew in a castle town guarding the east of Edo” has called in a samurai town and learning. In a quarter of the town plan of samurai residences surrounding the castle, a physician of Dutch medicine opened a school and lectured on Western medicine, and now a national museum stands on the castle site. The plateau that began as a seat of arms changed, at some point, into a plateau that holds learning.