Itami-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 198,000 (198,138 in 2020). From 192,159 in 2000, it increased by about six thousand over twenty years and is stable at near two hundred thousand.

What I want to note here is that, while the population is stable, the number of children is gently decreasing. Those under 15 fell by about three thousand, from 30,416 in 2000 to 27,159 in 2020. The share aged 65 and over doubled over the same period, from 13.1% to 26.0%, over twenty years. The household-with-children share is 23.5% (2020). The elementary schools have stayed at seventeen, entirely unchanged for more than twenty years; the Childcare Waitlist has been zero in recent years; and the Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.77 in fiscal 2023. The figure of a mature city holding its population stably in a siting caught between Osaka and Kobe appears in the numbers. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of sake and the sky.

Itami begins as one sake-brewing town. In 1600, a clear sake — refined sake — is told to have been brewed for the first time in this land, and Itami is held to be the "birthplace of refined sake." The Itami gomachi, which developed from a castle town that escaped burning, came in the Edo era to have most of its area belong to the Konoe house, and under its protection the sake-brewing industry that sent sake out toward Edo grew vigorous. Around the Genroku and Shotoku eras the sake-brewing houses increased greatly, and the town accumulated wealth. A town that brews clear sake — this was the starting point of this town.

The sake brewed in Itami was called "Itami morohaku" or "Tanjo," and was sent to Edo first by land and in time by sea. For the goodness of its taste it was widely sought in Edo, and is told to have risen even to the shogun’s table. As a noted producing area of "downward sake" coming down from Kamigata to Edo, the Itami goachi boasted a wealth such that its form was likened to a money pouch — a bag of gold. As a town that sent sake to Edo, Itami flourished throughout the early-modern era.

What added a new layer to the town’s character is the modern airfield. In 1939, the Osaka Second Airfield opened in an area including the city. After the war it was requisitioned by the American military, then returned in 1958, and the following year, as Osaka International Airport — Itami Airport — it came to bear the role of the gateway of the Kansai sky. When Kansai International Airport opened in 1994 the international lines moved there, but Itami Airport still links the whole nation by domestic lines. Beginning as a town of clear sake, sending sake to Edo, and holding an airport in the modern era — one place, the flat land between Osaka and Kobe, overlaying two histories, sake and the sky, has set the present Itami.

What characterizes Itami is that, while holding its population stably in a siting caught between Osaka and Kobe, the number of children is gently decreasing. Those under 15 fell by about three thousand, but it is not a sharp shrinkage; it is the gentle thinning of a mature city. On the other hand the total population is stable at near two hundred thousand, and it can be read that the siting as a commuting sphere for the two great cities keeps holding households in the town.

The numbers of living infrastructure too mirror this stability. The elementary schools in the city have stayed entirely unmoving at seventeen for more than twenty years, and even as children gently decrease, the school network has not wavered at all. This is also the flip side of the town’s population structure not having greatly collapsed. The Childcare Waitlist has moved at zero in recent years. A Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.77 shows that, as a commuting sphere for the two great cities, the tax revenue rising from the households that work and live there can cover nearly eight-tenths of expenditure. The stability of population, the immobility of the school network, and the zero waitlist seem separate numbers, but branch from one fact — that the siting caught between two great cities has kept holding households. Take out only one indicator, and the image of the town cannot be grasped.

Itami holds several functions of its own. One is the character of a sake-brewing town held to be the "birthplace of refined sake," where the sake-brewing townscape of the Itami goachi and the history of the "downward sake" sent to Edo remain at the center of the town. Another is the character of being the location of Osaka International Airport — Itami Airport — still bearing by domestic lines the role of the gateway of the Kansai sky. The siting between Osaka and Kobe overlays these two histories in one town.

Itami is the town where two histories, sake and the sky, overlap. From the Itami goachi that brews clear sake, through the prosperity of the "downward sake" that sent sake to Edo, to the modern airport — the same one place, the flat land between Osaka and Kobe, first gave birth to clear sake, and later called in an airport to the same town. The wealth of sake and the gateway of the sky, when one traces back, both arrive at this one point, the flat land. One place has taken up a different function for as many ages as there have been — that is the bone of the town of Itami.