Toyonaka-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 402,000 (401,558 in 2020). From 391,726 in 2000, about ten thousand increased over twenty years, and it has entered a stable phase with no large rise or fall.

What I want to see here is that, behind the total population being held nearly level, the inside of the ages moves greatly. The share aged 65 and over rose from 14.4% in 2000 to 26.2% in 2020 — nearly doubling over twenty years. On the other hand, those under 15 held their number almost, from 55,438 to 54,916. The household-with-children share is 22.4% (2020), a level not low among the residential towns of Osaka Prefecture. Holding the real number of children while aging alone advances greatly — this is the form that appears commonly in a mature suburban residential area, where the generation that moved in all at once mounted its years in the town as is. The primary schools stayed at forty-two for a long time, and in 2023 fell slightly to thirty-nine. Including the land price of the residential area and the Fiscal Capacity Index (0.85 in fiscal 2023), why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the Hankyu line-side and the new town.

Toyonaka’s skeleton is set, rather than upon the natural landform, upon a single railway heading for the Osaka city center. Originally this stretch was a farm village of Teshima County, Settsu Province, and in 1889 five villages merged to set up Toyonaka Village. That it lay at the center of Teshima County became, as is, the place-name "Toyonaka." It was not a land to become the center of a great city, but the nearness of fifteen kilometers from the Osaka city center would later decide this town’s fate.

The turning point was the railway. In 1910, when the Minoo-Arima Electric Tramway, the forerunner of the Hankyu Takarazuka Line, opened, the line-side began to open as a residential area. It is the composition in which a private railway, laying its tracks, planfully produces the suburb where those commuting to the city center dwell. What economic geography calls the flow in which a commuter line gives birth to a suburb worked here too. In 1936, city status was enforced, and the character of a residential town firmed up.

A further expansion came in the postwar period of high growth. Making use of the siting of the fifteen-kilometer ring of the Osaka city center, the development of Senri New Town advanced rapidly from the 1960s on, centered on the new Senri hills in the northeast. A large volume of housing was supplied in a short period, and households of the same generation moved in all at once. Further, in the northwest, Osaka International Airport, whose forerunner was the old Itami airfield, was placed, bearing one corner of the urban infrastructure. The hill that had been a farm village, called by the railway, filled at a stroke with the new town, and holding the airport — this town’s shape stands, rather than upon the landform, upon the history of a private railway’s line-side development.

What characterizes Toyonaka is that, although both the total population and the real number of children are kept nearly level, the aging rate alone has risen to nearly double over twenty years. This is not a contradiction, but the time lag that appears commonly in a suburban residential area developed all at once. Senri New Town and the line-side housing lots were put on sale at a stroke in a short period. The generation that moved in there mounts its years in the same town as is. The children of that time grow up and leave home, but new households fill that in, so the total number of children is kept. On the other hand, the parent generation that moved in first moved together into the elderly layer.

The numbers of living infrastructure mirror this gentleness too. The primary schools did not move from forty-two for more than twenty years, and only in 2023 fell to thirty-nine. In contrast to the fierce consolidation common in regional cities of population decline, in a town where the number of children was kept, the school network too hardly sways. The Childcare Waitlist has moved in recent years from single digits to around twenty, a nearly held-down level for the scale of a four-hundred-thousand city. Children kept, schools kept, yet aging alone advancing — these three look strange seen separately, but read as one continuous thing, as the time lag of the moving-in generation, they make sense.

Toyonaka holds several functions of its own. One is the line-side residential area through which the Hankyu Takarazuka Line runs, where the urban district strings along the commuter axis heading for the Osaka city center. Another is Senri New Town, spreading over the new Senri hills in the northeast — an area that symbolizes the large-scale postwar housing development. Further, in the northwest is Osaka International Airport, and, while a residential town, it bears one end of the metropolitan sphere’s air gateway.

Toyonaka is a town opened in order to house those commuting to the Osaka city center. From the hill that had been a farm village, to the Hankyu line-side residential area, and to the mature suburb holding a new town — the condition that "there was a hill in the fifteen-kilometer ring of the Osaka city center" called in a single private railway, and that railway and the new town filled the town. Not following the natural landform, the man-made axis of a commuter line drew this town’s shape. The hill of the fifteen-kilometer ring of the Osaka city center called in a single private railway, and that railway and the new town fill the farm village. The generation developed all at once and moved in all at once is now moving together into the elderly layer, while the replacing new households keep the number of children.