Hino-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 190,000 (190,435 in 2020). Over the five years from 186,283 in 2015, it gained more than four thousand. It is a city keeping an increase within the Tama region, where many cities reduce their population.

What I want to note here is that, while the population increases, the inside is moving little by little. Those under 15 fell from 23,438 (2015) to 22,894 (2020), about five hundred. In the same span, the share aged 65 and over rose ever so slightly, from 23.5% to 24.0%. The household-with-children share is 18.8% (2020). The land price of residential areas is about 197,500 yen per m². The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.92 (2023), falling just short of 1.0, in a structure that supplements part of standard expenditure with the local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist rose slightly, from 26 (2024) to 30 (2025). The total population increases, the total number of children slightly falls, and the waitlist slightly rises. The three — total, children, waitlist — point in their own separate directions; the reason does not come into view without following the course that carried over functions from a post town of the Koshu Kaido to railway, factory, and housing complex.

Hino’s skeleton is made of railway, factory, and housing complex layered era by era upon a post town opened on a highway. The first foundation is the post town. In 1605, Hino-juku was opened as a post town of the Koshu Kaido. In this post town, continuing Fuchu-juku — Hino-juku — Hachioji-juku, the headman’s house bore the role of directing the coming and going of people and goods. What historical geography calls “a settlement arising at a node of a highway” is this town’s starting point.

The second is the history that made this town’s name known across the nation. The headman of Hino-juku, Sato Hikogoro, set up a dojo of the Tennen Rishin school at his nagaya gate, and there Kondo Isami, Hijikata Toshizo, Okita Soji, and others crossed swords and met. Many of those who would later bear the core of the Shinsengumi have this post town’s dojo as their starting point. That Hino is called “the home of the Shinsengumi” owes to this history.

The third and later are modern industry and housing. In 1889, the Kobu Railway (later the Chuo Line) opened between Shinjuku and Tachikawa, and the next year, 1890, Hino Station opened, and the town became a place along the railway. In wartime, Hino Heavy Industries (later Hino Motors) became independent, and a factory manufacturing military vehicles was placed. Then in 1958, the Japan Housing Corporation developed a large-scale housing complex at Tamadaira, and dwellings on the scale of about thirty thousand people were born across the area. In 1963, Hino went from a town to a city. The coming and going of the post town, the young men of the dojo, the railway becoming a line, the siting of the factory, and the development of the housing complex — a single post town opened on a highway has, carrying over functions, recombined into a residential city of Tama.

What characterizes Hino-shi is that, while the total population gained four thousand, the number of children fell by about five hundred. Unlike regional cities where the absolute number of people too thins, the total keeps increasing. But looking inside, what increases is mainly adults, and children are moving to the slightly decreasing side.

It appears in the childcare numbers too. The waitlist rose slightly, from 26 (2024) to 30 (2025). That the waitlist rises even though the total number of children is falling looks, at first glance, like a movement facing the opposite way. But in a town that has gathered people since the era of housing-complex development, phases can arise where childcare-needing households cluster in particular areas or ages so that demand stands, and the supply of childcare cannot fully catch up there. The household-with-children share is 18.8%, holding young households in a certain measure. The total number of children slightly falls, yet childcare demand remains locally, and the waitlist slightly rises. Without descending to where, and of which generation, the childcare households live, the true nature of this slight increase cannot be read.

Hino-shi holds several functions of its own. One is the trace of the post town of the Koshu Kaido, where the headman’s residence and places tied to the Shinsengumi remain as historic sites, keeping inscribing the town’s origin on the map. Another is the automobile-manufacturing factory continuing from wartime, where industry typified by Hino Motors has struck root in this town.

In transport, the Chuo Line pierces the town east to west, serving as the commuting axis linking the city center and Tama. The Tamadaira housing complex, developed in 1958, has later, through rebuilding and regeneration, changed its form into a quarter where multiple generations live. From a land of the post town’s coming and going, to the land of the Shinsengumi’s dojo, and further to a town of factory and housing complex along the railway — the origin of “a node of a highway” has carried over different functions era by era. The post town, the dojo, the factory, and the housing complex are all, at root, set upon the same condition — along a highway where people and goods pass to and fro. Even at the same post town of the Koshu Kaido, a small city closed in by mountains reduced its population. Because Hino was flatland close to the city center, the dojo, the factory, and the housing complex could ride, one after another, smoothly onto the post town.