Higashimurayama-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 152,000 (151,815 in 2020). From 142,290 in 2000, it gained roughly ten thousand over twenty years and has entered a stable phase with no great rise or fall.

What I want to note here is that, behind the total population being held nearly steady, the inside of the ages is moving. The share aged 65 and over rose from 16.7% in 2000 to 26.8% in 2020 — ten points over twenty years. Those under 15 fell from 19,740 to 17,720, about two thousand. The household-with-children share is 19.2% (2020). The elementary schools have stayed unmoved at fifteen for more than twenty years, and the Childcare Waitlist has moved in recent years from single digits to the low tens — a level nearly held down for the scale of a city of one hundred fifty thousand. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.75 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a suburban residential city of Tama, quietly aging while holding its total population, shows in the numbers. The mechanism by which only the inside ages while the total does not move comes into view by tracing how a single railway, and the metropolis’s water jar made afterward, opened the town.

Higashimurayama’s skeleton is set, more than by natural landform, by a single railway and the water jar made afterward. In 1894, the Kawagoe Railway (the present Seibu Kokubunji Line) opened, and the Kumegawa stop — later Higashimurayama Station — was placed. The first railway ran through this area of Tama, and a node was born where people and goods from the surrounding villages gathered. The typical case economic geography speaks of — railway calling in a suburban town — worked here too.

The next turning point was a great city’s water jar. From 1916 to 1927, over ten years, the Murayama Reservoir was built. An artificial lake to support the ever-rising water demand of Tokyo, it brought a large water surface to the north of the city area. And the course by which this reservoir came to be widely known by the popular name “Lake Tama” also shows this town’s character. The Seibu Railway, which had laid track nearest this lake bustling with recreation visitors, is said to have proposed “Lake Tama” as a name befitting a sightseeing place. A railway company named the water jar as a sightseeing place and drew people along its line.

Thus the town fixed its character as a suburb opened by railway and a water jar. In 1942 it enacted town status, and through the postwar population increase, in 1964 it enacted city status. The railway made a node, the water jar gave a landscape, and along that line the suburban residential area filled in — this town’s form stands upon the history of railway and the Murayama Reservoir.

What characterizes Higashimurayama-shi is that, even though the total population is held nearly steady, the aging rate rose ten points over twenty years. This is the form common to a mature suburban residential area where, with no great inflow or outflow, the generation already living simply ages in place. The actual number of children fell by about two thousand, but it stays not at an abrupt shrinking but at a gentle thinning.

The figures of living infrastructure mirror this gentleness. The elementary schools have stayed unmoved at fifteen for more than twenty years, and even against the decrease of children the school network has hardly swayed. The Childcare Waitlist, from single digits to the low tens, leaves childcare demand befitting a commuting zone to the twenty-three wards, but it has not swelled greatly. The suburb opened by railway and a water jar, after greatly extending its population in the postwar period, has now entered a stable phase with scant inflow and outflow. The total population is held, children gently decrease, and only aging proceeds — the figure of a town quietly aging in place, with no great inflow or outflow, appears in this combination of numbers.

Higashimurayama, as a town opened in the north of Musashino, holds several functions of its own. One is its transport node since the first railway ran through in 1894, where several rail lines pass through the city, supporting its character as a commuting zone to the twenty-three wards. Another is the Murayama Reservoir — Lake Tama — spreading in the north of the city area, which, while a great city’s water jar, has also been loved as a place of recreation along the line.

Higashimurayama is a suburb of Tama opened by railway and a water jar. From a transport node, to a landscape with a water jar, and further to a residential area in the commuting zone to the twenty-three wards — the condition of “the first railway ran through this area of Tama, and in time a great city’s water jar was made” bore its character as a suburban residential area. A single track made a node, near it a lake was dug to moisten the city center’s throat, and it was the railway, too, that spread the name of that lake as a sightseeing place. An artificial lake and a single track decide both this town’s landscape and its character.