Chofu-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 243,000 (242,614 in 2020). Over the twenty years from 204,759 in 2000, it gained nearly forty thousand. It is a city that has steadily extended its population even within the Tama region.

What I want to note here is that even the number of children is increasing. Those under 15 rose from 24,301 (2000) to 28,754 (2020), more than four thousand. Cities where the absolute number of children is increasing are not many, even looking across the Tama region. In the same span, the share aged 65 and over rose from 14.3% to 20.8%, but as a city of Tama it sits on the gentle side of aging. The land price of residential areas is about 427,500 yen per m², a high level within the Tama region. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 1.18, exceeding 1.0 — a level that covers standard expenditure with its own tax revenue alone, without relying on the local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist fell from 13 (previous) to 8 (latest). That children increase and fiscal capacity exceeds 1.0 in a city of Tama — the reason comes into view by tracing the history of the gate-front of Jindaiji and the studios that gathered relying on clean water.

Chofu’s skeleton is a land where three conditions — faith, water, and railway — overlap. In old times, as the gate-front of Jindaiji — an old temple enshrining a Buddha image of the Hakuho period held to be the oldest in the Kanto — a place where people gathered opened on this land. What historical geography calls “the rise of a settlement cored on a place of faith” was this town’s first foundation.

The second foundation, the one that made this town’s name known across the nation, is film. In 1933, a studio sited itself by the bank of the Tama River. Clean water, indispensable for developing film, was available; it was blessed with locations for period dramas; and close to the city center, modern dramas too were easy to shoot — these conditions drew studios to this land. In the heyday of Japanese cinema in the 1950s, several studios beginning with Nikkatsu and Daiei gathered, and Chofu became a concentration of the film industry. The studios, through changes of name and capital, remain even now as the Kadokawa Daiei Studio and the Nikkatsu Chofu Studio, and related image-production firms gather within the city.

The third foundation is railway. The Keio Line pierces the city east to west and became the commuting axis linking the city center and Tama. In 2012, the railway around Chofu Station was put underground, and the level crossings that had long divided the town were swept away. Opened as a gate-front town, drawing in the film industry relying on water, and linked to the city center by railway — three conditions, faith, industry, and transport, are layered across the ages on this land close to the Tama River.

What characterizes Chofu-shi is that, while the total population rose by forty thousand, even the number of children rose by four thousand. It appears in the figures of living infrastructure in the form opposite to the consolidation common to regional cities where population has greatly fallen. The elementary schools within the city have moved steadily at around twenty-two. In a town where the absolute number of children increases, the school network too holds without thinning.

The Childcare Waitlist fell from 13 to 8. A decrease in the waitlist in a town where children keep increasing is opposite in meaning to the “result of the absolute number of children thinning,” common to regional cities in population decline. It is a decrease as the result of having made supply catch up to demand, while children increase and population too extends. There is also the aspect that a fiscal capacity exceeding 1.0 supports the supply to the ever-rising childcare demand. Even with the same “the waitlist falls,” the reading changes entirely depending on whether children are increasing or thinning behind it. Children increase, schools hold, and the waitlist falls. Because a city along the Tama River close to the city center has kept drawing in young households, the three figures of living infrastructure turn toward increase in step.

Chofu holds several functions of its own. One is the gate-front cored on the old temple Jindaiji, which remains a place of old faith and crowd-drawing. Another is the film and image industry concentrated in the area near the Tama River, where related firms beginning with the Kadokawa Daiei Studio and the Nikkatsu Chofu Studio gather, characterizing this town as “the city of film.” Further, there is the Tokyo Stadium (Ajinomoto Stadium), opened in 2001, which gathers people from across the nation as the home ground of football.

Chofu sits on the commuting axis linking the city center and Tama by the Keio Line, and with the 2012 undergrounding the division of the town was undone. From the gate-front of Jindaiji to the city of film, and further to a residential city holding a stadium — the condition of “a land along the Tama River close to the city center” has carried over different functions era by era. The gate-front of faith, the studios, and the stadium are all, at root, set upon the same location — blessed with water and close to the city center. The clean water that washes film drew in the studios, and those studios spread the name “the city of film” across the nation. A single condition — water — granted this town the distinctive face of the film industry.