Kakamigahara-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 145,000 (144,521 in 2020). After rising by some twelve thousand from 131,991 in 2000 toward 2005, it has settled roughly flat in the range of 144,000 to 146,000.

What I want to note here is that, while the population is stable, the number of children is gently decreasing. Those under 15 fell by some three thousand, from 21,752 in 2005 to 18,832 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over doubled over twenty years, from 14.3% in 2000 to 28.3% in 2020. The household-with-children share is 23.7% (2020). The number of elementary schools has stayed roughly at 16 to 17 for more than twenty years, the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.85 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a self-reliant industrial city, whose own tax revenue can cover more than eight-tenths of expenditure, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the airfield.

Kakamigahara’s skeleton is set by a single airfield. In the Taisho era, on the low-relief plain spreading north of the Kiso River, the Army’s Kakamigahara Airfield was opened. This is the forerunner of the present Gifu Air Base of the Air Self-Defense Force, and is held to be one of the oldest airfields still existing in the country. That an airfield was drawn on a wide plain — this was the city’s starting point.

Beside that airfield, a factory that builds aircraft was built. In 1922 the Kawasaki Shipyard, the forerunner of the later Kawasaki Heavy Industries, domestically produced a foreign-made airframe and conducted a test flight at Kakamigahara Airfield. The next year, a factory was set on land adjacent to the airfield. The airfield was there first, and to it a factory that builds aircraft was drawn — this order decided the city’s character. The integrated relationship of manufacturing tied to the sky — testing at the airfield, building at the factory beside it — was set here.

Since then, Kakamigahara has walked together with the manufacturing tied to the sky. After the war too, the Gifu Works of Kawasaki Heavy Industries remained a base of aircraft production, handling trainers, transports, helicopters and the like, and further widening the breadth of its business toward space-related equipment. This factory marked one hundred years from its founding in 2022. Beginning with an airfield, with a factory built beside it, and the manufacturing of the sky continuing for a hundred years — this city’s shape stands upon the history of the airfield and the aircraft industry.

What characterizes Kakamigahara City is that, while the population is stable, roughly flat over twenty years, the number of children is gently decreasing. Those under 15 fell by some three thousand, but not as a sudden shrinkage — a gentle thinning after the child-rearing generation came around once. Meanwhile the total population is stable in the 140,000 range, and it can be read that both the siting within the commuting sphere of Nagoya and the places to work centered on the aircraft industry tie households to the city.

The numbers of living infrastructure also mirror this stability. The elementary schools within the city have stayed roughly at 16 to 17 for more than twenty years, and even amid a gentle fall in children the school network has not wavered. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed zero in recent years. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.85 shows that its own tax revenue can cover more than eight-tenths of expenditure, and it can be read that the factories, the aircraft industry foremost, and the tax revenue rising from the households that work and live there support this self-reliance. The city raised, with a factory built beside the airfield, together with the manufacturing of the sky, still keeps a stable population and self-reliant finances. These numbers mirror not a ranking of better or worse, but a single city structure: that, with a factory built beside the airfield, it has tied people down together with the manufacturing of the sky.

Kakamigahara holds several functions of its own. One is the aviation history going back to one of the oldest airfields still existing in the country, where the Gifu Air Base of the Air Self-Defense Force still occupies a corner of the municipal area. Another is the accumulation of the aircraft and aerospace industry centered on the Gifu Works of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, set beside that airfield, which has continued the manufacturing tied to the sky for a hundred years. And it holds together the character of a suburban city within the commuting sphere of Nagoya.

Kakamigahara is a city raised upon the line a single airfield drew. From the airfield opened on a plain, to the aircraft factory built beside it, to the manufacturing of the sky continuing for a hundred years — the event that "an airfield was drawn on a wide plain, and beside it a factory of aircraft was built" summoned the aircraft industry and set the city’s skeleton. On the wide plain north of the Kiso River an airfield was drawn, and beside it a factory of aircraft was built. This single act of human will set, at the same time in this city, the manufacturing of the sky continuing for a hundred years and the places to work that stabilize the population.