Fukuyama-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 460,930, holding the 460,000 range. It fell by nearly four thousand in the five years from 464,811 in 2015. A core city of the Chugoku region that has entered a phase of decline while holding the 460,000 range.

What I want to see here is the way the number of children declines. Those under 15 fell by nearly four thousand in five years, from 64,496 (2015) to 60,655 (2020). Children fell by almost the same amount as the total population. In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 26.6% to 28.7%, nearing three in ten. The household-with-children share was 21.6% (2020). The Official Land Price for residential land is around 45,000 yen per m², a level generally held down compared with the urban average of Hiroshima City (34100) in the same Hiroshima Prefecture. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.78 — a city that can cover much of its expenditure with its own tax revenue, but supplements the remainder with the local allocation tax. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 in 2025 — the waitlist is resolved. But this zero is also a figure amid a continuing fall in the absolute number of children. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of castle town and war damage, and of the steelworks.

The town of Fukuyama begins from the line of a castle town one warlord drew. In 1619, Mizuno Katsunari, a cousin of Tokugawa Ieyasu called "the Demon Hyuga," entered as lord of the 100,000-koku domain of Bingo. In 1622 he built a castle and named the place "Fukuyama." A town plan was drawn around the castle, and the prototype of the town was set as a castle town. In historical geography, it is a typical case where the setting-down of the power of a castle decided a city’s skeleton.

What once burned this castle town down was war damage. In the air raid of August 8, 1945, about eight-tenths of Fukuyama’s urban district was burned away. Castle and town were mostly turned to ash, and the town was pressed to rise from the scorched earth. In the course of recovery, around 1956, citizens planted about a thousand rose seedlings in the South Park — today’s Rose Park. The hands of citizens seeking to restore moistness to the ravaged town later made the character of Fukuyama as it came to be called "the city of roses." The loss of war damage gave rise to the rose, a symbol of recovery.

The third foundation is steel. In 1961 the siting of the Nippon Kokan Fukuyama Steelworks was decided. The town that had begun as a castle town and passed through war damage turned its helm greatly here, into a heavy-industry city holding one of the world’s largest integrated iron-and-steel works (now JFE Steel). The steelworks drew in many workers and their families and pushed up the town’s population. The skeleton of the castle town, recovery from war damage, the siting of the steelworks. Upon the land of Bingo where the Ashida River flows, these three histories piled up, and the present form of Fukuyama was made.

What characterizes Fukuyama is that the decline of the total population and the decline of the number of children proceed at almost the same speed. While the total population fell by nearly four thousand, children also fell by nearly four thousand. Unlike Kurashiki, where children fall faster than the total, or Nishinomiya, where child-rearing households keep gathering, in Fukuyama the whole town is contracting at the same pace. It is one and the same flow as the share of the elderly nearing three in ten.

The Childcare Waitlist is 0 in 2025, resolved. But this zero needs care to read as a figure that directly means "ease of child-rearing." It is a zero achieved while the absolute number of children fell by nearly four thousand in five years and the demand for childcare itself contracts. It overlaps in part, in its background, with the structure of a regional city where the waitlist nears zero after the absolute number of children has thinned. Children fall, the share of the elderly nears three in ten, and the waitlist becomes zero. In a regional core city where this much movement proceeds at once, even the result of a zero waitlist mirrors both the contraction on the demand side and the provision on the supply side. Take out a single number to decide the direction, and one misreads the town.

In Fukuyama, three cores of differing origin dwell together. Fukuyama Castle, built by Mizuno Katsunari, keeps etching the origin as a castle town at the town’s heart. The roses citizens planted on the scorched earth color the character of "the city of roses" around the Rose Park as its core. And the world’s largest-class integrated iron-and-steel works (JFE Steel) on the coast supports the industrial foundation.

Fukuyama lies on the land of Bingo where the Ashida River flows, a city of leading scale in the Chugoku region. From a castle town to the scorched earth of war damage, to a town of recovery where roses bloom, and further to a heavy-industry city — the origin of "a castle town set at a key point of Bingo" has carried a different function age by age. The castle, the roses and the steelworks are all characters that this town, which began in origin as a castle town, took on anew with each loss, recovery and turn. A single castle town was burned, rose again from a thousand roses, and in time turned its helm toward industry. The town of Fukuyama lies at the end of that chain of loss and turn.