Akashi-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 304,000 (303,601 in 2020). In the five years from 293,409 in 2015, it increased by more than ten thousand. Amid many cities whose population decreases, it is a city holding an increasing trend.

What I want to note here is that even the number of children is increasing. Those under 15 increased by more than fourteen hundred, from 39,714 in 2015 to 41,155 in 2020. Cities where the absolute number of children increases are not many, even surveying the whole nation. Over the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 25.3% to 26.2%, and aging itself is advancing. The household-with-children share is 21.6% (2020). The land price of the residential area is around 103,000 yen per m². The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.72 (2023), a level that makes up part of standard expenditure with local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist rose, from 50 (2024) to 56 (2025). In a city where aging advances, the number of children increases, and at the same time the waitlist increases — the reason these several numbers do not all face the same direction cannot be read without going back over the history of the castle town, fishing, and the meridian, and the child-rearing policy of recent years.

Akashi’s skeleton is made of a history in which a siting facing a strait took on a different role in each age. In 1619, by the command of Tokugawa Hidetada, Ogasawara Tadazane built Akashi Castle as a guard against the daimyo of the western provinces. With the castle as the pivot of a fan, a castle town was opened to its south, and the Saigoku Road (San’yo Road) was rerouted through the center of the castle town. The geography of a strategic point commanding the strait first set a base of military affairs and the highway. It is, in the terms of historical geography, a typical planned castle town with the castle as its core.

At the same time, this land was also a fishing town of old. The "Akashi sea bream" and "Akashi octopus," tossed by the fast tide of the Akashi Strait, were known from early on, and records of some three hundred years ago show many fishing boats. The natural condition of the strait overlaid, apart from the castle town, the character of a fishing town.

The third role that made this town known throughout the nation is the standard of time. Receiving the fixing of the international standard of longitude at Greenwich in 1884, Japan in 1886 fixed the time of the 135-degree-east meridian as Japan Standard Time (enforced in 1888). It is through Akashi that this meridian passes. In 1910 Japan’s first meridian marker was raised, and in 1960 the Akashi Municipal Planetarium opened and became the symbol of the "town of time." And in 1998 the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, spanning the Akashi Strait, began service, and the old siting of a strategic point on the strait passed on its role to an axis of transport linking Honshu with Awaji Island and Shikoku. The castle town, fishing, the meridian, and the bridge — one siting facing a strait has reloaded a different function in each age.

What draws the eye in Akashi’s numbers is that two opposite flows coexist: while the share aged 65 and over keeps rising, the absolute number of those under 15 increases by fourteen hundred. Aging advances as in cities throughout the nation. But the number of children, amid many cities that shed it, increases. Of the ten-thousand increase in the total population, part is supported by the increase in children.

Behind this is the child-rearing policy that Akashi City has advanced since 2013. The city set out support measures with no income limits, such as making children’s medical expenses free and easing the burden of childcare fees, and the in-migration of child-rearing households increased — this is a fact that the city itself and several news reports record. If children increase, demand for childcare too increases. That the waitlist rose from 50 to 56 can be read as having the aspect that the absolute number of children increased and demand exceeded supply. The direction behind it differs both from the "waitlist of zero as the result of thinning children" of a regional city where children thin, and from the circumstances of Kurume City. Even with the same number, "waitlist," the way to read it changes entirely depending on whether children are increasing or decreasing. A fiscal capacity of 0.72 is not outstandingly high, but in the flow where children and child-rearing households increase, keeping supply catching up to demand remains as a question in this city’s numbers. The numbers mirror not good or bad, but the structure of the town.

Akashi holds several functions of its own. One is Akashi Castle, with about four hundred years of history, and the townscape deriving from the castle town, where a turret that is a national important cultural property remains. Another is the role of a "town of time" through which the 135-degree-east meridian passes, where the meridian marker and the planetarium inscribe the standard of time on the map. And the fishing of "Akashi sea bream" and "Akashi octopus," raised by the fast tide of the Akashi Strait, still continues.

What is peculiar to this town is its function as a node linking Honshu with Awaji Island and Shikoku. The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, which came into service in 1998, as an axis of transport spanning the strait, passed on the old siting of a strategic point on the strait to a present-day role. It adjoins Kobe (28100) and is continuous with it as an urban sphere. From a castle town to a fishing town, to a town of the standard of time, and to a node of the bridge — one siting facing a strait has called in different functions — military affairs, fishing, science, transport — in each age. The sound of the fast tide, the shadow of the castle’s turret, the pendulum of the science museum that marks time, and the line of cars crossing the bridge all sound at once within this one town.