Shibuya-ku

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 244,000 (243,883). Over the ten years from 196,682 it added some forty-seven thousand. A ward with a strong image of the entertainment district around its station holds an upward trend in resident population too.

What draws the eye above all is that the number of children is rising too. Those under 15 rose from 16,799 to 22,984, some six thousand more. More striking is that the share aged 65 and over stayed nearly flat, from 16.9% to 16.9%. Children increase, the elderly share does not move — the figure of a town where young households and the working-age generation keep flowing in and turning over appears in this flatness. The residential land price is in the 1.61-million-yen range (1,610,000 yen), among the very highest of the 23 wards. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.96, approaching 1.0 — a structure behind which high land prices and incomes generate thick tax revenue. The childcare waitlist has been pressed down to zero at the latest reading. That top-tier land prices and an inflow of young households line up makes sense only by setting down how people were drawn into the valley floor the Shibuya River carved, and station, commerce and youth culture stacked there.

Shibuya’s skeleton begins from a single valley a river carved. There is a long, narrow valley landform the Shibuya River cut, and toward its bottom Dogenzaka and Miyamasuzaka descend from either side. The very landform of a valley floor worked as a vessel gathering the flow of people and goods to one point — a textbook case, in the terms of historical geography, of landform governing the movement of people.

In 1885 Shibuya Station was opened at that valley bottom. Its use was limited at first, but in time it became a node where several lines gathered, and the town spread along the climb and descent of the slopes. In 1932 the towns of Shibuya, Sendagaya and Yoyohata merged to form Shibuya Ward. And after the war this station town strengthened its character as a source of youth culture. In the 1970s commercial facilities such as Parco and SHIBUYA109 opened, and it came to be known as a town of trends where the young generation gathers.

A station set at the valley bottom, a commercial district spreading along the slopes, youth culture stacked — this town’s form is made of the geography of a valley landform the Shibuya River carved, with station, commerce and culture set on it in turn. And now this valley is being remade once more. In 2005 the area around Shibuya Station was designated a Special Urban Renaissance Urgent Development Area, and together with undergrounding of the tracks and use of the freed land, large-scale redevelopment centered on the station advances. Atop the same landform of a valley floor, the town keeps being renewed across the generations.

What characterizes Shibuya-ku is that, while the total population rose by forty-seven thousand and the number of children by six thousand, the elderly share stayed flat. That appears in the figures for living infrastructure in a form unlike either the consolidations common in regional cities of population decline or a town where aging advances one-sidedly. Elementary schools in the ward fell from 23 to 21, some two fewer over ten years. That schools edged down even as the absolute number of children rose suggests that the central-area circumstances of land and consolidation move on a logic apart from the number of children.

The childcare waitlist has been pressed down to zero at the latest reading. Opposite in meaning to the “zero from a thinned absolute number of children” common in regional cities of population decline, it reads as a zero reached, against thick finances, by keeping supply abreast of demand while children keep rising. Children increase, the share of aging does not move, the waitlist settles at zero — the figure of a town where young households and the working-age generation keep flowing in and turning over appears in this combination. In part, a fiscal capacity approaching 1.0 supports the supply against rising childcare demand.

Shibuya-ku holds several functions of its own. One is the station set at the bottom of the valley the Shibuya River carved and the commercial clustering spreading along Dogenzaka and Miyamasuzaka, which goes on carrying its character as a source of youth culture. Another is the large-scale redevelopment around the station, advancing since the 2005 designation as a Special Urban Renaissance Urgent Development Area, together with undergrounding of tracks and use of freed land, where the valley-floor town is being remade right now. Blocks of differing character, such as Omotesando and Yoyogi Park, also coexist in the ward.

Shibuya has shifted, from a valley landform a river carved, the functions of station, commerce, youth culture and redevelopment, era by era. The station, the commercial district and the high-rises of redevelopment alike were set, in turn, on the same landform: a valley floor that gathers the flow of people to one point. Because there was the gravitational pull of a landform where people gather to the valley bottom, a station was set, commerce grew, youth culture was born, and redevelopment now advances. Because the landform held a pull, the next function has gone on being summoned across the generations.