Joetsu-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 188,047. What I want to note first of all is that the jump of more than seventy thousand, from 134,751 in 2000 to 208,082 in 2005, is not the result of a natural increase in people. It owes to the 2005 merger that widened the municipal area at a stroke, and the step in the figures reflects that merger. That the number of schools leapt nearly double, from thirty in 2004 to fifty-five in 2005, owes to the same merger.

On that basis, looking at the post-merger content, from a peak of 208,082 in 2005 it fell by about twenty thousand to 188,047 in 2020. Those under 15 steadily fell from 29,917 in the post-merger 2005 to 22,044 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.4% in 2000 to 32.7% in 2020, passing three in ten. Households with children make up 21.5% (2020). The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.57 in fiscal 2023. The numbers show a wide municipal area bound by merger growing older as it shrinks. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without tracing the history of the castle town and the merger.

Joetsu’s skeleton is set upon a centrality that runs from the Warring States era into the Edo period. First, in the age of the Warring States, on this land’s Kasugayama stood Kasugayama Castle, the residence of Uesugi Kenshin, known as a renowned warlord. As one of the centers of Echigo, it was a base of military and political power. On entering the Edo period, in 1614 Matsudaira Tadateru built Takada Castle as a public works project ordered by the shogunate, and Takada was readied as a castle town. From the mountain castle of Kasugayama to the lowland castle town of Takada — this land’s center has been kept while shifting with the times.

In this snow-country castle town a townscape of its own was born. So that people could pass even amid the deep snows of winter, eaves were thrust out before the houses — the “gangi.” With gangi continuing eave to eave, one could walk under the roofs and move about the town even in a winter buried in snow. The total length of the gangi still standing in Takada reaches about twelve kilometers, said to be the longest in Japan. The natural condition of snow gave this town an architectural form of its own. Meanwhile Naoetsu, facing the Sea of Japan, flourished as a port town from old, and together with Takada has formed the two centers of this land.

The shape of the present municipal area was decided by the Heisei-era merger. After Takada City and Naoetsu City merged in 1971 to give birth to Joetsu City, in January 2005 the city absorbed thirteen surrounding towns and villages all at once. This was a wide-area merger in which fourteen municipalities — the largest number in the nation — became one. A city with a castle town and a port town as its cores changed its form into an extremely wide municipal area that includes even the towns and villages of the mountains. That the number of schools leapt nearly double, from thirty to fifty-five, is because this merger bound the school networks of many old towns and villages. Beginning with a Warring States mountain castle, raising an Edo castle town and port town, lining up the gangi of a snow country, and widened by the nation’s largest merger — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a castle town and a wide-area merger.

What characterizes Joetsu-shi is that, after the nation’s largest merger widened the municipal area at a stroke, the population turned to decline and aging has passed three in ten. From the post-merger 2005 to 2020, the total population fell by about twenty thousand, and those under 15 too steadily thinned. This is the sign that a wide municipal area, including many towns and villages of the mountains, holds both the centers of Takada and Naoetsu and a periphery where depopulation advances.

The figures for living infrastructure mirror both the merger and the contraction. The number of elementary schools rose nearly double, from thirty to fifty-five, through the merger, but has since fallen in steps through the decline of children and the consolidation of schools in depopulated areas. This is the shape in which the contraction of the periphery of the wide municipal area bound by merger appears directly in the school network. The Childcare Waitlist has held at zero in recent years. But this carries strongly the aspect not of having met demand in full but of margin arising in capacity as the absolute number of children falls. The wide-area city that bound fourteen municipalities, with a Warring States mountain castle, an Edo castle town, and a port town as its cores, shrinks as a whole while holding the center and the depopulated periphery at once. The total population turns to decline, children fall, aging passes three in ten, and even a zero waitlist balances on the side where demand has shrunk — in a wide-area merger city where the dynamics split between center and periphery, the outline of the town cannot be read by pulling out a single figure alone.

Joetsu holds several functions of its own. One is the castle town of Takada, running from the Warring States Kasugayama Castle to the Edo-period Takada Castle, where the gangi that supported passage amid the snow still stand at the longest total length in Japan, conveying to this day the history of a snow-country castle town. Another is the port town of Naoetsu, facing the Sea of Japan, which together with Takada has formed the two centers of this land. And the urban districts and settlements of the thirteen old towns and villages bound by the nation’s largest merger coexist throughout a wide municipal area that includes even the mountains.

Joetsu is a town that, with a castle town and a port town as its cores, bound the nation’s largest number of municipalities — fourteen. From a Warring States mountain castle, to an Edo castle town and port town, and to a wide-area city of fourteen municipalities — a history of “the centers of the Warring States and the Edo periods being set down on the Takada Plain facing the Sea of Japan” became the core around which the later wide-area merger was bound. The deep snow gave birth to a townscape of its own, the gangi, and that centrality became the axis around which fourteen municipalities were bound. The Warring States chose a mountain castle, the Edo period a castle town and port town, and the Heisei era the merger of fourteen municipalities — upon the same Takada Plain, three ages have each drawn a “gathering” of a different scale.