Higashihiroshima-shi

In the 2020 Population Census the population is 196,608, passing 190,000. It rose by nearly four thousand in five years from 192,907 in 2015. While many regional cities across the nation lose population, it is one of the few cities within Hiroshima Prefecture holding an upward trend.

What I want to see here is its relation to the number of children. Those under 15 fell by about eight hundred, from 27,521 (2015) to 26,734 (2020). Behind the rising total population, the number of children slightly thinned, and the share aged 65 and over rose from 21.9% to 23.3%. From this one can read that the increase in the total is not necessarily due to young households alone. The household-with-children share was 19.9% (2020). The Official Land Price for residential land is around 70,000 yen per m² (69,600 yen/m² in 2026), a level held down compared with the urban district of the government-ordinance-designated city Hiroshima City (34100). The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.85 (2023), a level able to cover much of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025). Why such numbers take this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the post town and the university relocation.

The town of Higashihiroshima has a two-layer structure, where a university and factories were later set by plan upon an old post town. The central Saijo was, since early-modern times, the post town of Yokkaichi-juku, placed on the Saigoku Road (the old San-yo Road). Upon the character of a post town along the highway, sake-brewing was layered from the Meiji era on. Blessed with fine water, Saijo prospered as a town of sake breweries, leaving a scene of white-walled breweries standing in a row along the highway. In economic geography, "a country town centered on a highway and a local industry" is this town’s first foundation.

The second foundation, deciding its fate, is the university relocation. In 1974 (Showa 49), Saijo Town, Shiwa Town, Takaya Town and Hachihonmatsu Town merged, and Higashihiroshima City was founded. In the same period a plan to build the Kamo University City was raised, and it was decided to consolidate and relocate Hiroshima University, which had been in the center of Hiroshima City, to this inland land (the relocation decision was in 1973). Beginning with the relocation of the Faculty of Engineering in 1982 (Showa 57), the faculties and facilities moved in turn through 1995 (Heisei 7). Upon a vast site where a hillside was cut open, the great human cluster of a university was set down all at once.

From there a third layer piles up. The university city was designated a technopolis, and the cluster of advanced-technology industry was promoted by policy. Upon a land that had the research function of a university, an aggregated site, and a developed traffic network, factories sited themselves. In recent years it has come to be known as a town where semiconductor-related industry gathers. Upon the country town of post-and-sake-brewing, a university moved, and factories followed. Upon the foundation of an old highway post town, a university and factories were later set by plan — that is Higashihiroshima’s two-layer structure.

What characterizes Higashihiroshima is that, while the total population rose by nearly four thousand, the number of children fell by about eight hundred. Even in a town that has gathered people by university relocation and factory siting, the flow of the absolute number of children faces a direction other than the total population. Here appears the distinctiveness of the history of a university city. Much of the population a university brings at once is students, and child-rearing households do not increase in proportion as they are. The number of children quietly shows the breakdown of the increase in the total population, divided out.

The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025), and the household-with-children share is 19.9% (2020). The figure of a zero waitlist can be read as a state in which the provision of childcare is catching up to demand, amid a number of children slightly thinning. It looks like an equilibrium point peculiar to a university city — neither the zero after the absolute number of children has greatly thinned, as in a population-declining regional city, nor the zero of a town with continually increasing children that made supply catch up. The population rises, children slightly decline, the share of the elderly rises gently. In a town where this much movement proceeds at once, the number on the waitlist too converges to a small value. Overlay the single line of the total population directly upon the movement of young households, and one misreads this university city.

In Higashihiroshima, the layers of origin appear overlaid. The campus of Hiroshima University, set upon a cut-open hillside, forms the town’s core as a cluster of students and research function. The brewery group remaining in Saijo, with white walls standing in a row along the highway, keeps etching the origin as a post town and a town of sake-brewing. The semiconductor-related factory group on the industrial site developed as a technopolis supports another face.

Higashihiroshima is a town that has set, by plan, a university and factories upon the origin of an old highway post town. The breweries, the university and the semiconductor factories were all set down, age by age, upon the same condition of an inland aggregated land. Even after the post town declined, the same conditions — an aggregated site and fine water — drew in sake-brewing, the university, and factories, one after another. The town of Higashihiroshima has set down age upon that condition.