Yachiyo-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 200,000 (199,498 in 2020). From 168,848 in 2000, over twenty years it rose by about thirty thousand and still holds an upward trend.

What I want to note here is that, while the population rises steadily, the number of children has turned somewhat to a plateau in recent years. Those under 15 rose from 24,876 in 2000 to 28,994 in 2010, and then fell by a little over three thousand from that peak to 25,580 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over doubled over twenty years, from 12.6% in 2000 to 25.3% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 22.6% (2020). The elementary schools long moved at twenty-one to twenty-three, and in recent years fell to nineteen. The Childcare Waitlist has, in recent years too, been in the low tens, not reaching zero. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.91 in fiscal 2023. Behind an ever-increasing population, the children pass their peak, and aging advances — the figure of a suburban residential city heading toward maturity shows in the numbers. Why it took this form cannot be read without going back over the history of the housing complex.

Yachiyo’s skeleton is set by a single housing complex. After the war, as the demand for housing rose centered on Tokyo, the building of residential land began on the site of the army drill ground that had been in the city’s south. And in 1955, with the Chiba Prefecture housing association at the center, the “Yachiyodai complex” was sold in lots here. This was the first large-scale housing complex in the nation built as a public undertaking, and at the west exit of Yachiyodai Station stands a monument to “the birthplace of the housing complex.” On the site of a drill ground, the first large-scale complex in Japan was laid out — this was the town’s starting point.

What supported that complex was a single private railway. Receiving the Keisei Electric Railway’s decision to set a new station between two existing stations, the prefectural housing association advanced the building of the complex. The station and the complex were planned almost as one, and households commuting to the city center began to live in the complex in front of the station. The railway station came first, and the complex and the people were drawn there — this is how this town came to be.

Beginning with this “birthplace of the housing complex,” large-scale housing complexes were built one after another in the city. Residential-land development spread centered on the Keisei line, and Yachiyo increased its population as a bedtown. And in 1967, it shifted from town to city, and Yachiyo City was born. Beginning with Japan’s first complex, with complexes running along the private railway, and enacting city status — this town’s form stands upon the history of the housing complex.

What characterizes Yachiyo-shi is that, while the population keeps increasing steadily over twenty years, the number of children passed its peak around 2010. Those under 15 peaked at nearly twenty-nine thousand in 2010 and then turned to decrease. Meanwhile the total population keeps rising, and the aging rate doubled over twenty years. People keep entering the town as a whole, but within it the weight of the child-rearing generation falls, and the generation that moved in early ages — the typical form when a suburban residential city heads toward maturity.

The figures of living infrastructure too mirror this shift. The elementary schools, which numbered twenty-one to twenty-three when children were increasing, fell to nineteen in recent years, matching the children passing their peak. That the Childcare Waitlist is in the low tens and does not reach zero can be read not as the result of children having thinned all the way out, but as a figure on the side where, amid a continuing inflow of new households, supply cannot quite keep up with demand. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.91 shows the figure of a suburban city with a high degree of self-sufficiency, covering about nine-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue. Looking only at the single figure that the total population keeps rising, it appears a town with momentum, but laid together with the other figure that the children passed their peak, the figure of a town heading toward maturity first stands up.

Yachiyo, as a town opening on a plateau through which the Shin River flows, holds several functions of its own. One is its character as “the birthplace of the housing complex,” where the first large-scale housing complex in Japan was born, and the monument in front of Yachiyodai Station conveys to this day this town’s history as the starting point of postwar housing policy. Another is the large-scale complexes and residential land running along the Keisei line, supporting the skeleton of a suburban residential city that receives households commuting to the city center.

Yachiyo is a town of housing complexes, built to receive the postwar housing shortage. From Japan’s first complex on the drill-ground site, to the complex group running along the private railway, and on to the enactment of city status — the event that “to receive Tokyo’s housing shortage, Japan’s first large-scale complex was laid out on the site of a drill ground” called in the private-railway station and set the town’s skeleton in place. It was not the landform that called in the town. A national undertaking — to receive the housing demand overflowing in postwar Tokyo — set this town in place on the site of a drill ground. It is a town whose starting point was policy.