Amagasaki-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 460,000 (459,593 in 2020). From 452,563 in 2015, it has increased by about seven thousand. What I want to note here is that this increase is not "a number at the end of continuous increase." Amagasaki is a town that was long on the side of net out-migration (more leaving than arriving), and this increase appears as a number near the turning point at which that flow swung to the side of net in-migration.

On the other hand, the number of children faces the reverse. Those under 15 fell by more than two thousand, from 50,036 in 2015 to 47,978 in 2020. Over the same period the share aged 65 and over fell slightly, from 26.8% to 26.1%. As the total population increases through in-migration, the share of the elderly thins just a little, while the absolute number of children decreases — several flows run at once. The household-with-children share is 15.8% (2020). The land price of the residential area is around 222,500 yen per m² (2026). The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.81 (2023), a level able to cover much of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The Childcare Waitlist fell, from 11 (2024) to 6 (2025). Why these numbers take this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle town, the industrial zone, and the pollution.

Amagasaki’s history is the very history in which a siting caught between two great cities, Osaka and Kobe, took up a different role in each age. This area in ancient and medieval times was a strategic point of water and land transport linking Yamato, Naniwa and the capital with the western provinces and the Inland Sea. In the early Edo era, Toda Ujikane built Amagasaki Castle, and the only castle town in the Hanshin area was formed. In the castle town, commercial crops such as cotton and rapeseed were handled, and sake brewing too was vigorous. It is, in the terms of economic geography, a typical case in which a town of commerce and warriors was set at a node of transport.

The second foundation is industry. In 1889 Amagasaki Spinning (later Unitika) was established, and the industrialization of this land set in motion. In 1905 the Hanshin Electric Railway Main Line, Japan’s first full-scale interurban electric railway, opened between Osaka and Kobe, and Amagasaki rode upon the axis linking the two great cities. Adjoining Osaka and provided with a port, railways and water, its conditions drew factories one after another, and Amagasaki grew rapidly as a core of the Hanshin Industrial Zone. The town, which enforced city status in 1916, became an agglomeration of heavy and chemical industry.

But the agglomeration of industry brought, as a third phase, pollution. In the high-growth period, soot and exhaust gas grew serious, and it was even said that "seen from Osaka, the sky of Amagasaki is black." In time pollution countermeasures and environmental regeneration were advanced, and the industrial town steered toward an environmental town. On the north side of JR Amagasaki Station and elsewhere, redevelopment advanced, and high-rise housing and new town blocks were put in order. Beginning as a castle town, becoming a core of the industrial zone, and passing through pollution to a town to live in — one siting caught between two great cities, reloading its role in each age, has formed the present Amagasaki.

What characterizes Amagasaki is that, while the population changes its direction from net out-migration to net in-migration, the absolute number of children is decreasing. This appears in the numbers of living infrastructure as a phase of turnover, differing from either expansion or consolidation. Because households moving in and households finishing their child-rearing move at once, the total population increased, yet those under 15 thinned by more than two thousand. The household-with-children share is 15.8%, and even set beside great cities like Kobe or Yokohama, it is not a town heavily weighted toward its child-rearing layer.

The Childcare Waitlist fell, from 11 to 6. This is not a resolution of shortage at the end of an increase in children, but can be read as a decrease as the result of bringing supply to around where supply and demand balance, amid a gently thinning absolute number of children. Even with the same fact, "the waitlist falls," the meaning changes depending on whether children are increasing or decreasing behind it. The entrance differs from a great city like Nagoya, which moves the waitlist while holding the absolute number of children. People begin to return, the share of the elderly thins slightly, yet children decrease — in a town where these advance at once, the number of the waitlist too comes to be held within a small range of swing. Take out only one number to read it, and one mistakes the figure of the town.

Amagasaki holds several functions of its own. One is the siting, lying just between the two great cities of Osaka and Kobe, in direct connection with both cities by the Hanshin Electric Railway Main Line and several other railways. Another is the industrial land agglomerated on the coast as a core of the Hanshin Industrial Zone, where diverse factories from heavy and chemical industry to metal and machinery gather, continuing to inscribe this town’s origin on the map.

Amagasaki opened as the only castle town in the Hanshin area, and upon it industry piled, and after passing through pollution it added, through redevelopment, the face of a town to live in. The castle town, the spinning factory, the coastal heavy and chemical industry, and the high-rise housing north of the station are all, when one traces back, set upon the same condition of a flat land caught between two great cities and provided with a port and railways. That siting has called in a different function — commerce, industry, housing — in each age. Even as the town’s role changes, the one thing that has not moved is its position between the two great cities.