Hadano-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 162,000 (162,439 in 2020). This city’s population is not a step formed by a great merger; it struck a nearly flat peak between 168,142 in 2000 and 168,317 in 2005, then moved to 170,145 in 2010, 167,378 in 2015, and 162,439 in 2020, beginning to descend gently in recent years. A basin town has just turned the direction of its curve from increase to decrease.

Looking at the makeup, the figure of a Kanagawa suburban city emerges. The share aged 65 and over was 29.9% in 2020, nearing thirty percent, and households with children make up 18.2%, somewhat low. The childcare waitlist has been zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.79 in FY2023 — a level able to cover about eighty percent of expenditure on its own tax revenue, high for a regional city. A basin town shows in its numbers the figure of holding its fiscal stamina on the higher side while gently losing population. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the origins of the basin’s groundwater and its leaf tobacco.

Hadano’s skeleton is set by the geography of the only basin in Kanagawa Prefecture. Ringed on the north and west by the Tanzawa Mountains and on the south by the Shibusawa hills, this Hadano basin has an underground structure that, beneath it, becomes a natural reservoir holding the groundwater soaked into the Tanzawa peaks. It is said to hold more than seven hundred million tons of groundwater beneath the basin, and its spring water was chosen for the Environment Ministry’s Selection of 100 Exquisite Waters. The geography of a basin blessed with water decided this town’s origin.

That same soil grew an industry among the finest in the country in the modern era. Until about half a century ago, Hadano was a celebrated producer of leaf tobacco. From the Edo period into the Taisho era, when shredded tobacco was at its height, leaf tobacco was cultivated across most of the basin’s farmland, and for its high quality it was called one of the “three great fine leaves of Japan,” alongside Satsuma and Suifu. Hadano was also a center of leaf-tobacco cultivation technology, where the techniques supporting quality and mass production were honed. The basin’s water and soil grew a tobacco-producing region.

That leaf-tobacco cultivation came to an end in 1984. But to convey the history of the tobacco that carried the town’s development, the Hadano Tobacco Festival still continues as a major event of the city. Beginning with a basin that holds famous water, growing leaf tobacco among the finest in the country, leaving that memory in a festival — this town’s shape stands on the origins of water and tobacco.

What characterizes Hadano is that a basin town that long grew its population has, in recent years, passed its peak and begun to fall gently. Taking the 170,145 of 2010 as one summit, some seven thousand were lost by 2020. It reads as a composition showing in these numbers — a town incorporated, as a Kanagawa suburban city, into the commuting range toward Tokyo and Yokohama, which grew its population after the war, turning to decline as its residential land matures. That the share aged 65 and over nears thirty percent is the other side of that maturity.

Even so, the fiscal stamina holds on the higher side. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.79 is a level able to cover about eighty percent of expenditure on its own tax revenue, on the higher side for a regional city. It reads that residential land as a commuting range, and the industry remaining in the basin, give thickness to the tax source. The childcare waitlist, too, has moved at zero in recent years. The basin town holding famous water now holds its fiscal stamina on the higher side while gently losing population, the peak passed. Population past its peak, aging nearing thirty percent, fiscal stamina on the higher side — these three folded together make the present of a basin town at the southern foot of Tanzawa. Take out the population curve alone, or the fiscal capacity alone, and you cannot grasp the feel of this town.

Hadano holds several functions of its own. One is its geography as Kanagawa’s only basin, holding the groundwater of Tanzawa, with the origin of a natural reservoir chosen for the Selection of 100 Exquisite Waters. Another is its origin as a producer of leaf tobacco called one of the three great fine leaves alongside Satsuma and Suifu, retaining the memory of having been a center of cultivation technology. And the character of a commuting range toward Tokyo and Yokohama gives this town the face of a Kanagawa suburban city.

Hadano is a basin that holds famous water. From a natural reservoir holding the groundwater of Tanzawa, to a region that grew leaf tobacco among the finest in the country, and on to a Kanagawa suburban commuting range — the geography of the prefecture’s only basin, opened at the foot of Tanzawa, summoned in turn the groundwater, the tobacco and the residential land. Even as the industry moved from tobacco to residential land, the one condition of a basin holding seven hundred million tons of groundwater has flowed, unchanged all along, at the bottom of this town.