Matsusaka-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 159,000 (159,145 in 2020). What I want to note first of all here is that the surge of forty-five thousand, from 123,727 in 2000 to 168,973 in 2005, is not the result of people increasing naturally. It owes to the city area being widened by the merger of 2005, and the step in the figures mirrors that merger. That the school count jumped from twenty-five in 2005 to forty-one owes to the same merger.

On top of that, looking inside the post-merger figures, from 168,973 in 2005 to 159,145 in 2020, it has fallen by about ten thousand. Those under 15 thinned steadily from the post-merger 23,183 in 2005 to 19,629 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over rose from 19.3% in 2000 to 30.0% in 2020, reaching three in ten. The household-with-children share is 21.6% (2020). The Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years, and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.59 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a city area widened by the merger, quietly aging, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle town and the merchants.

Matsusaka’s skeleton is set from the castle town one warlord laid out. In 1588 (Tensho 16), Gamo Ujisato built Matsusaka Castle on a place called Yoiho-no-mori and undertook the building of the castle town. Ujisato set a free-market, free-guild (rakuichi-rakuza) in the castle town, drew the Ise Road near the castle, and summoned merchants of his former domain of Omi into the heart of the town, working to promote commerce. The castle and the device for drawing merchants were set at once. This was the town’s starting point.

What brought wealth to that castle town was the special product, Matsusaka cotton. Striped cotton woven from indigo-dyed thread greatly became the fashion of Edo, which favored "chic" (iki). Taking this as their seed of trade, many great merchants rose from Matsusaka into Edo — foremost Mitsui Takatoshi, ancestor of the Mitsui group, who won fame as the foremost great merchant of Japan, and others such as Ozu and Hasegawa. The merchants drawn into the castle town made their fortunes in Edo on the strength of cotton, forming the group called "the Matsusaka merchants" — this thickness of trade decided the town’s character.

What decided the present shape of the city area is the Heisei merger. In January 2005 (Heisei 17), the former Matsusaka City newly merged with Ureshino Town, Mikumo Town, Iinan Town and Iitaka Town, and the city centered on the castle town widened into a broad-area city joining the Ise Plain to the mountainous interior. That the school count jumped from twenty-five to forty-one owes to this merger bundling the school networks of several former towns into one city. Beginning with a castle town, flourishing by cotton and merchants, and widened by the merger — this town’s shape stands upon the history of the castle town and the Matsusaka merchants.

What characterizes Matsusaka is that, after the merger widened the city area, the population declines gently and the aging reaches three in ten. From the post-merger 2005 to 2020, the total population fell by about ten thousand, and those under 15 thinned steadily. Without large inflow or outflow, the generations already living simply grow older — a shape common to mature regional central cities.

The numbers of living infrastructure mirror both the merger and the maturity. The primary schools rose all at once from twenty-five to forty-one with the merger of 2005, as the former towns’ school networks were bundled as they were. Thereafter they have moved at forty-one, the school network dispersed across a city area widening from the urban district of the Ise Plain to the mountainous interior. The Childcare Waitlist has stayed at zero in recent years. But this owes less to having met demand to the end than to a balance of supply and demand amid gently thinning children. The regional central city that began with a castle town, flourished by the Matsusaka merchants and widened by the merger has now entered a maturity poor in inflow. The total population declines gently, children thin, and the aging reaches three in ten — the figure of a regional city in which several such currents proceed at once appears in the numbers. Between the urban district of the Ise Plain and the mountainous interior of Iinan and Iitaka added by the merger, the speed of this thinning probably differs, too.

Matsusaka holds several functions of its own. One is its character as a castle town centered on Matsusaka Castle, built by Gamo Ujisato, where the castle ruins and the trading townscape that began with the free-market, free-guild have been set at the heart of the town. Another is the history of "the Matsusaka merchants," which sent out the likes of Mitsui Takatoshi; the former residences of the great merchants who made their fortunes in Edo on the strength of cotton still remain in the castle town. And the broad city area bundled by the merger of 2005 holds the castle town and the surrounding former towns in one city.

Matsusaka is a town raised by a castle and by trade. From Gamo Ujisato’s castle town, to the prosperity of cotton and the Matsusaka merchants, and to a broad-area city widened by the merger — the event "a warlord laid out a castle and its town and drew merchants" called the cotton trade and set the town’s skeleton. Gamo Ujisato laid out a castle and its town on the Ise Plain and summoned merchants there. Upon the town-plan the castle set, the cotton trade grew up and sent out the Matsusaka merchants across the nation. The castle, and the merchants who gathered there, still form the foundation of this town.