Tahara-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 59,000 (59,360 in 2020). This city’s population has a step from a merger. Tahara City was established in 2003 when Tahara Town incorporated Akabane Town and took city status, and in 2005 it incorporated Atsumi Town to reach the present city area. Looked at in the post-merger figures, from 66,390 in 2005, through 64,119 in 2010 and 62,364 in 2015, to 59,360 in 2020, it has fallen by about seven thousand in fifteen years.

Looking inside the figures, one number stands out. It is that the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.93 in fiscal 2023, a high level near one. This means a stamina rare for a provincial city, able to cover nearly all expenditure with its own tax revenue. The share aged 65 and over is 28.1% in 2020, short of three in ten, and the household-with-children share is high at 22.9%. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at roughly zero. The figure of a peninsula town of farming and industry that holds a markedly high fiscal stamina while bearing a decline in population appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the Tahara domain and the lamp-lit chrysanthemums, and the plant.

Tahara’s skeleton is set by the geography of the Atsumi Peninsula, jutting into the Pacific. This peninsula, with its warm climate and surrounded by the sea, has nourished people from of old as a land of farming and shipping. In the Edo era, the Tahara domain of twelve thousand koku, which the Miyake family governed over twelve generations, was set here. Watanabe Kazan, who served as its chief retainer, was a painter and a statesman both; he invited an agronomist and reformed the domain’s government, and is said to have let not a single person starve to death within the domain in the great famine of the Tenpo era. The skill that supported a small domain on the peninsula is inscribed in this town’s history.

Upon that warm peninsula, modern farming flowered. By the lamp cultivation of chrysanthemums — a method, begun in 1948, of lighting electric lamps at night to regulate the flowering of chrysanthemums — Tahara became a major producing district of disbudded chrysanthemums. Fields of disbudded chrysanthemums, boasting the top cultivated area, shipment volume and output value in the nation, light up the peninsula’s nights. Greenhouse horticulture making use of the warm climate became the core of this town’s farming.

And one more thing is layered at the tip of the peninsula — industry. In 1979 the Tahara Plant of Toyota Motor began operation. This automobile plant, held to be one of the nation’s largest, stands in the south of the peninsula. The lamp-lit chrysanthemums of farming and the automobile plant of industry come to stand side by side on a single peninsula. Beginning as the castle town of the Tahara domain, becoming the nation’s top producing district of disbudded chrysanthemums, and holding one of the nation’s largest automobile plants — this town’s shape stands upon the history of the farming and industry of the Atsumi Peninsula.

What characterizes Tahara is that, even as the population declines, the fiscal stamina is markedly high. It fell by about seven thousand in fifteen years, yet the Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.93, near one, able to cover nearly all expenditure with its own tax revenue. This can be read as the expression of holding two thick tax sources, of farming and industry — one of the nation’s largest automobile plants, and greenhouse horticulture beginning with the nation’s top disbudded chrysanthemums. It is a town where the value the industries generate is great relative to the scale of the population.

The thickness of those industries appears in the numbers of living too. The share aged 65 and over is 28.1% in 2020, short of three in ten, and the household-with-children share is high at 22.9%. It can be read as the expression that the plant and farming give workplaces and have held young households in place to a degree. The Childcare Waitlist, too, has moved at roughly zero. The peninsula town of farming and industry now holds, at once, a markedly high fiscal stamina and a comparatively shallow aging, while bearing a decline in population. The population declines, the aging is shallow, and the fiscal stamina is markedly high. That finances and youth are kept beside a declining population is because two thick industries of differing character — one of the nation’s largest automobile plants and the nation’s top disbudded chrysanthemums — support the workplaces.

Tahara holds several functions of its own. One is its history as a castle town where the Miyake family’s Tahara domain was set and which gave rise to the chief retainer Watanabe Kazan, holding the history of having supported a small domain on the peninsula. Another is greenhouse horticulture, represented by the lamp-lit chrysanthemums, holding the core of farming that boasts the top shipment volume of disbudded chrysanthemums in the nation. And the Toyota Tahara Plant, held to be one of the nation’s largest, stands in the south of the peninsula as the core of industry.

Tahara is a peninsula where farming and industry stand side by side. From the castle town of the Tahara domain, to the nation’s top producing district of disbudded chrysanthemums, and to a town holding one of the nation’s largest automobile plants — the geography of "a warm peninsula jutting into the Pacific" called greenhouse horticulture and a plant, and set the town’s skeleton. On a warm peninsula jutting into the Pacific, the fields of lamp-lit chrysanthemums that light up even at night, and one of the nation’s largest automobile plants, stand side by side. Two thick tax sources of differing character, farming and industry, stand upon the same peninsula.

Lay out Tahara’s numbers and the indicators of a town with two thick tax sources of farming and industry line up: a post-merger population decline, an aging rate of 28.1%, a household-with-children share of 22.9%, and a fiscal capacity of 0.93. But what most draws my (Atlas) eye, used to accounts, is that the Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.93, near one. This is markedly high for a provincial city of fifty-nine thousand, and means a level able to cover nearly all expenditure with its own tax revenue. It can be read that two thick industries of differing character — one of the nation’s largest automobile plants, and greenhouse horticulture beginning with the disbudded chrysanthemums of the nation’s top shipment volume — give rise to the thickness of this tax source.

Lay out Tahara’s numbers and the indicators of a peninsula town of farming and industry line up: a population declining after the merger, an aging short of three in ten, a household-with-children share of 22.9%, and a fiscal capacity of 0.93. What I (Atlas), with the ledger’s eye, want to guard against is that, even with that high fiscal capacity, the population has fallen by seven thousand in fifteen years. The value the Toyota Tahara Plant, held to be one of the nation’s largest, generates, and the thickness of farming as the nation’s top producing district of disbudded chrysanthemums, support the markedly high fiscal stamina and the comparatively shallow aging. But the greatness of the value the industries generate and the dynamics of the population must be read separately. Fiscal stamina does not necessarily promise an increase in population.

Then, on this peninsula where the fields of lamp-lit chrysanthemums that light up even at night, and one of the nation’s largest automobile plants, stand side by side, which way will the ever-declining population and the markedly high fiscal stamina pull the town going forward? The power of two thick industries of differing character to hold young households, and the power that, owing to a location jutting into the Pacific, tends to keep people away — Tahara’s course hangs on which of these two pulls wins.