Ikeda-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 105,000 (104,993 in 2020). This city’s population, with no step from a large merger, has moved nearly level in the hundred-thousand range for twenty years, from 101,516 in 2000, through 101,616 in 2005, 104,229 in 2010, 103,069 in 2015, to 104,993 in 2020. It is a curve along which the town at the foot of Mount Satsuki has been held without breaking greatly.

Looking inside, the figure befitting a city near Osaka appears. The share aged 65 and over is 26.5% in 2020, a little over a quarter, and the household-with-children share is 19.3%. The Childcare Waitlist is zero in both 2024 and 2025. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.78 in fiscal 2023, a level able to cover nearly eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue — high for a regional city. The figure of the town of private-railway town-building and ramen, holding its population nearly level and holding its fiscal strength on the higher side, appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle town and the private railway.

Ikeda’s skeleton is set by the geography of the southern foot of Mount Satsuki and by one pattern born in the modern era. Long ago, around 1334, the Ikeda house, a local power rooted in Teshima, built a castle on the southern foot of Mount Satsuki. The Ikeda house extended its power until, in the Warring-States period, it was counted among the three military governors of Settsu, but Ikeda Castle was abandoned in 1574. The starting point of an old castle town lies in the deep layer of this town.

What greatly changed this town in the modern era was Kobayashi Ichizo, the founder of the Hankyu Railway. In 1910 he opened a railway linking Umeda and Takarazuka, bought up the land along the line, and opened in Ikeda the first electric-railway suburban lot-housing in Japan — the Muromachi Housing. To lay tracks, to build a residential area at their end, and to make those who live there into passengers — this pattern of private-railway line-side town-building, said also to have been the first in Japan to conceive of the housing-loan scheme, was born in Ikeda. It is the prototype, in the terms of economic geography, of city-building that designs transport and housing development as one.

And after the war, one more invention was born in this town. In 1958, Ando Momofuku, the founder of Nissin Foods, in a shed of only about ten square meters built in the backyard of his Ikeda home, invented the first instant ramen in the world, "Chicken Ramen." Ikeda is the birthplace of instant ramen. Beginning from an old house in the castle town, giving birth to the pattern of private-railway line-side town-building, and seeing the world’s first ramen born — this town’s shape stands upon the history of a castle town, a private railway, and invention.

What characterizes Ikeda is that, as a town that took up early the pattern of private-railway line-side town-building, it has held its population nearly level for twenty years. It has moved in the hundred-thousand range, and the share aged 65 and over stays at a little over a quarter. That, by the Hankyu, it is near the Osaka city center, and that it is a planfully built residential area dating from before the war, can be read as why the population has been supported steadily. On the other hand, it has not suddenly increased either — in a private-railway line-side town whose urban district matured early, the room to newly grow the population greatly is limited, it also appears.

That stability shows in the fiscal numbers too. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.78 is a level able to cover nearly eight-tenths of expenditure with its own tax revenue, high for a regional city. One can read that the taxes of residents commuting to Osaka, and the local commerce and industry, give thickness to the tax base. The Childcare Waitlist too is zero in both 2024 and 2025, and the receiving capacity against demand is held. The town of private-railway town-building and ramen now holds its population nearly level, with aging at a little over a quarter and its fiscal strength held on the higher side. The level population, the not-too-deep aging, and the higher-side finances — these three are not separate merits, but the appearance of one and the same structure, in which the taxes of residents commuting to Osaka and the local commerce support a steady population and tax base as one continuous thing.

Ikeda holds several functions of its own. One is the history of being the castle town of Ikeda Castle, built on the southern foot of Mount Satsuki, with the origin of an old town of the Ikeda house counted among the three military governors of Settsu. Another is its character as electric-railway suburban lot-housing along the Hankyu line, holding the memory that the pattern of private-railway line-side town-building was born here. And the face of being the birthplace of instant ramen gives this land the unique story of a town where the world’s first invention was born.

Ikeda is the town that gave birth to the pattern of private-railway town-building. From the castle town of Ikeda Castle, to the town that gave birth to the pattern of Hankyu line-side town-building, to the place where the world’s first ramen was born — the geography of "opening on the southern foot of Mount Satsuki, near the Osaka city center" called in the castle town, the private railway and the invention, and set the town’s skeleton. From this land, once the castle town of Ikeda Castle, was born the pattern of private-railway town-building, which makes railway management work by opening a residential area along the line, and in time even the first instant ramen in the world went out into the world. An old house of the castle town and a place of invention that gave birth to two patterns for later ages overlap as one at the foot of Mount Satsuki.