Imabari-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 152,000 (151,672 in 2020). In the five years from 158,114 in 2015, it fell by more than six thousand. It is a city that has entered a phase of continued decline.

What to note here is that the fall of children is faster than the total. Those under 15 fell by nearly two thousand in five years, from 18,816 (2015) to 16,907 (2020). In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 33.3% to 35.6%, passing one in three. The household-with-children share was 17.4% (2020), a level for a regional city where aging advances. The Official Land Price for residential land is about 35,000 yen per m² (35,300 yen/m² in 2026), the level of a regional port and industrial city. The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.51, with a structure that covers about half of expenditure with its own tax revenue and relies on the local allocation tax and the like for the rest. The Childcare Waitlist is 0 (2025). But what to note is that this zero waitlist is a figure within a falling absolute number of children. Even the same zero means something different in a city where children increase and in a city where they thin. Why it takes this shape cannot be read without going back over the history of the strait, shipbuilding and towels.

Imabari’s skeleton is the history of a position facing the sea calling in industry one after another. In the northeast of the Takanawa Peninsula, facing the Kurushima Strait — known as one of the Seto Inland Sea’s fiercest tidal currents — this land has from of old been a maritime stronghold. Ships going through the swift tide wait for the flow to slacken before calling at port; in Hashihama Bay, where such tide-waiting ships gathered, shipbuilding grew up, centered on the repair of vessels. That the Kurushima Strait was rich as a fishing ground, that ship-handling skill accumulated, and that shipping developed, also bound this town to the sea. It is, in economic geography, a typical instance of industrial agglomeration cored on a geographical condition.

Another foundation is towels. In 1894 Abe Heisuke began making towels in this land. Thereafter the towel industry put down roots in this town, and from 1960 it overtook Osaka in production value to become the nation’s largest, coming to hold about six-tenths of the domestic share. The two industries of shipbuilding and towels agglomerated, with a division of labor, in the same town by the sea.

And this town, which took city status in 1920, was joined to Honshu by land in 1999 when the Nishiseto Expressway (the Shimanami Kaido) opened with the Kurushima-Kaikyo Bridge and others, and in 2005 Imabari City merged with eleven towns and villages of Ochi District. The shipping, shipbuilding and marine industries scattered about the region gathered into a single administrative area, and Imabari came to be called "Japan’s largest maritime city." From tide-waiting in the strait to the repair of ships, to shipbuilding and towels, and then to the agglomeration of the maritime industry — this town’s industry has piled up, across the ages, upon a single position facing the sea.

What characterizes Imabari is that, while the total population falls by six thousand in five years, the number of children falls faster than that. Those under 15 thinned by nearly two thousand, and the share of the elderly passed one in three. It is a flow common to regional cities that have crossed the peak of their population and are shifting the center of gravity within to the elderly side.

The Childcare Waitlist is 0. But to read this zero only as childcare support outstripping demand is too quick. In a town where the absolute number of children itself falls by nearly two thousand in five years, the base of childcare demand shrinks too. As is seen in regional cities where children thin, a zero waitlist also carries the side of being "the result of the absolute number of children thinning." The figure of a household-with-children share of 17.4% also shows that childcare-age households are not the majority in this town. Children fall, the elderly pass a third, and yet the waitlist settles at zero — in a regional maritime city where several such flows proceed at once, the supply and demand of childcare too settle into small numbers. Even the same zero reads quite differently depending on whether children are increasing or thinning behind it. Imabari’s zero carries the side of being a zero at the end of the base itself shrinking, rather than the result of childcare-age households having grown thicker.

Imabari’s industry is a chain of things called in one by one by a position facing the sea. One is the agglomeration of shipbuilding cored on Hashihama Bay, facing the Kurushima Strait, where Imabari Shipbuilding and several other yards and related marine industry line the coast. Another is the towel industry, begun in 1894 and grown to hold about six-tenths of the national share, which has put down roots in the city with a division of labor. Further, the character of a "maritime city," in which shipping, shipbuilding and marine industry agglomerated into a single administrative area, keeps binding this town to the sea.

Imabari was joined to Honshu by land with the 1999 opening of the Nishiseto Expressway (the Shimanami Kaido), and the 2005 merger gathered the region’s maritime industries into one. From a tide-waiting port to a town of shipbuilding and towels, and further to an agglomeration of maritime industry — the position of "facing a strait of fierce currents" has re-loaded a different industry age by age. The repair of ships, towels, and shipping are all, in origin, set upon this position facing the sea. That sea of fierce currents has, one after another, called in to this Hashihama shore the tide-waiting ships, the repair of ships, and in time the agglomeration of towels and maritime industry.