Saku-shi

In the most recent Population Census the population is about 98,000 (98,199 in 2020). What must be noted first is that the sharp rise from 66,875 in 2000 to 100,462 in 2005 was not the result of people naturally increasing. It came from merging with three towns and villages in 2005 to become a city of a hundred thousand, and the step in the figures mirrors that merger.

Looking into the makeup after the merger, the population eased from 100,462 in 2005 to 98,199 in 2020, and the share aged 65 and over rose from 24.3% in 2005 to 30.7% in 2020, past three in ten. Those under 15 fell from 15,164 after the merger to 12,480. Households with children were 21.8% (2020). The number of elementary schools rose from ten to nineteen through the merger, then through consolidation became fourteen in 2023. The childcare waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.51 in FY2023. Its own tax revenue covers only about half of expenditure, and a structure leaning on the local allocation tax shows. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back to the history of the highway, the Shinkansen and the merger.

Saku’s skeleton is set upon an old highway that ran through a highland basin, the Shinkansen station added to it, and the Heisei-era merger. First the highway. Through this highland basin called Saku-daira ran the Nakasendo, which linked Edo and Kyoto, and post towns such as Mochizuki-juku, Shionada-juku and Yawata-juku stood one after another within the present municipal area. Mochizuki-juku in particular prospered from early times as a post town of the Nakasendo. The traffic of the highway raised the towns of post stations across the highland basin.

In the modern era, a new axis of transport was added to this highland. The Joshin’etsu Expressway and the Hokuriku Shinkansen opened, and Sakudaira Station was placed here. With the Shinkansen station built, large commercial facilities sited one after another before the station, and one of the town’s centers of gravity moved there. Upon the old axis of the highway’s post towns, the new axis of the Shinkansen station was laid.

And what decided the shape of the present municipal area was the merger of 2005. In April of that year, the former Saku City, Mochizuki Town, Asashina Village and Usuda Town newly merged, and a new Saku City of a hundred thousand was born. The post towns of the highway, including Mochizuki-juku, were bound into a single city. From the post towns of the highway, to the Shinkansen station, to a city of a hundred thousand that bound four municipalities together — this town’s shape stands upon a history of the Nakasendo, the Shinkansen and the Heisei-era merger.

What characterizes Saku is that, after becoming a city of a hundred thousand through merger, its population has eased down gently and aging has passed three in ten. This appears in the figures for living infrastructure as both merger and shrinkage. The elementary schools within the city rose at once from ten to nineteen through the merger, then through subsequent consolidation became fourteen in 2023. After the school networks of the four former municipalities were bound together by the merger, consolidation advanced in step with the falling number of children.

The childcare waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. But this is less the result of meeting demand than, in large part, of room opening up against capacity as the number of children gently thins. The highland city that bound together the towns of the highway’s post stations grows before its Shinkansen station while, as a whole, its population eases down gently and aging advances. The time in which the area before the Shinkansen station grows with large stores, and the time in which a highland regional city quietly grows older, run separately within the same city of a hundred thousand — Saku’s numbers lay those two speeds side by side and show their divergence.

The functions Saku holds are not one. There is the memory of the highway where the post towns of the Nakasendo — Mochizuki-juku, Shionada-juku, Yawata-juku — stand one after another, carrying into the present the old axis that ran through the highland basin. There is Sakudaira Station of the Hokuriku Shinkansen and the area before it, which has become one of the town’s centers of gravity as a new axis of transport. And the centers of the four former municipalities bound together by the 2005 merger stand together at various places across a wide municipal area.

Saku is a highland merger city where the post towns of a highway and a Shinkansen station live side by side. From the post towns of the Nakasendo, to the area before the Shinkansen station, to a city of a hundred thousand that bound four municipalities together — the condition that a highway ran through a highland basin and a Shinkansen station was later placed there laid an old axis and a new axis over a single municipal area, and the Heisei-era merger bound them together. The time when travelers lodged at Mochizuki-juku, and the time when the Shinkansen grows the area before its station. Two distant times now run, each at its own speed, within the same city of a hundred thousand.