Kariya-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 154,000 (153,834 in 2020). From 132,054 in 2000 it rose by over twenty thousand in twenty years, and it keeps a rising trend even now.

What first draws the eye here is the Fiscal Capacity Index. In fiscal 2023 it was 1.24, greatly exceeding one. This means it can cover expenditure with its own tax revenue alone, one of the few municipalities that need not rely on the local allocation tax. The aging rate is also low; the share aged 65 and over rose from 11.4% in 2000 to 20.2% in 2020, but among cities nationwide it is at a gentle level. Those under 15 keep roughly their number, from 21,907 to 20,887. The household-with-children share is 21.8% (2020), and the primary schools have stayed unchanged at fifteen for over twenty years. The Childcare Waitlist is still in the teens in recent years, not reaching zero. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the loom and automobiles.

Kariya’s skeleton is set by a new layer, modern industry, piled upon an old layer, the castle town. Kariya originally opened as the castle town of Kariya Castle. But what decided this town’s character was the entry of a single firm from the twentieth century on.

Its starting point is the founding of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. The inventor Sakichi Toyoda worked on improving the loom, and to put his invention into practical use, in 1926 the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works was established in this land. A plant mass-producing automatically running looms was born in the land of Kariya. And it was this loom company that became the origin of the later Toyota Group. The automobile division derived from the loom business in time split off and grew into an automobile maker.

In Kariya, the birthplace, the core firms of the group agglomerated. Beginning with the auto-parts firms Denso and Aisin, several head offices with annual sales over a trillion yen line up within the city — the so-called company castle town. A group of firms that began with the invention of a single loom gathered plants, head offices and employment in the town, and the tax revenue rising from them supports the town — this is the typical case, in economic geography, of a specific industry’s agglomeration shaping a city. A town that began as a castle town, put the invention of the loom into practical use, and became the birthplace of an automobile group — this town’s shape stands upon a history walked together with a single group of firms.

What characterizes Kariya is that, in addition to a Fiscal Capacity Index greatly exceeding one and being independent, the population increases and the number of children is kept. That appears as stability in the numbers of living infrastructure. The city’s primary schools have not moved from fifteen for over twenty years, and in this town where the number of children does not collapse, the school network too barely sways.

The level of a Fiscal Capacity Index of 1.24 means a state that covers expenditure with its own tax revenue and still has a surplus. It can be read that the fixed-asset tax and corporate tax revenue generated by the head offices and plants of the Toyota Group support this thickness. At the same time, the households of workers these firms gather are also the background to the number of children being kept. That the Childcare Waitlist is in the teens, not reaching zero, can be read not as a result of children thinning to the end, but as a number on the side where, amid child-rearing households still flowing in, supply cannot fully keep up with demand. That said, one should also keep in view that this is a town strongly dependent on a single group of firms. As long as that industry thrives, finances and employment are kept, but the rise and fall of the industry and the town’s fate are joined. The numbers, on their own, do not fix their meaning.

Kariya holds functions of its own. One is its character as the birthplace of the Toyota Group — a company castle town where head offices with annual sales over a trillion yen, such as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Denso and Aisin, agglomerate within the city. Another is the old layer of a castle town beginning with Kariya Castle, conveying to this day the starting point of this land before it became an industrial city.

Kariya is a place where, upon the foundation of a castle town, a single group of firms built an industrial town. From a castle town, to the practical use of the loom’s invention, and to the birthplace of an automobile group — the event "a plant putting the loom’s invention into practical use was placed here" called the group of firms, and that group of firms shaped the town’s finances and employment. Upon the foundation of a castle town, a plant putting the loom’s invention into practical use was placed. From that single point an automobile group arose, and the group of firms born from it shaped, in their entirety, the town’s finances and employment.

Lay out Kariya’s numbers and the indicators of an industrial city with one of the strongest finances in the country line up: a population increase, children kept, a gentle aging, and a fiscal capacity of 1.24. But what I (Atlas), with an eye that has watched financial statements, want to guard against is reading the number of a fiscal capacity over 1.2 as "safe forever." The 1.24 is the present result, supported by the tax revenue generated by the head offices and plants of the Toyota Group. In a town strongly dependent on a single group of firms, as long as that industry thrives, finances and employment are thick, but the rise and fall of the industry and the town’s fate are inseparably joined.

Lay out Kariya’s numbers and the indicators of an industrial city with one of the strongest finances in the country line up: a population increase, children kept, a gentle aging, and a fiscal capacity of 1.24. But what I (Atlas), with an eye that has watched financial statements, want to guard against is reading the number of a fiscal capacity over 1.2 as "safe forever." The 1.24 is the present result, supported by the tax revenue generated by the head offices and plants of the Toyota Group. In a town strongly dependent on a single group of firms, as long as that industry thrives, finances and employment are thick, but the rise and fall of the industry and the town’s fate are inseparably joined.

Pressed to the end, the population increasing, the children not collapsing, and the fiscal capacity exceeding one are not separate merits. A group of firms that arose from the invention of a single loom gathered head offices and plants within the city, and that tax revenue and employment hold the residents and the children in place — they are the appearance of one and the same structure, branching off from a single trunk. So when one reads this town, it is right to look, before each indicator, at the rise and fall of the group of firms that is that trunk. Beginning as a castle town, giving rise to an automobile group from the loom, and remaining a company castle town where the head offices still gather — Kariya’s numbers are entrusted entirely to how long this single trunk can keep its thickness.