Kurume-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about 303,000 (303,316 in 2020). Over the five years from 304,552 in 2015 it fell by some twelve hundred. As a core city holding the third population in Fukuoka Prefecture after Fukuoka and Kitakyushu, the stage of increase is already past, and it has entered a phase of gentle decline.

The number of children thins faster than the total. Those under 15 fell by some thirty-two hundred, from 41,133 (2015) to 37,877 (2020). In the same period the share aged 65 and over rose from 25.0% to 26.4%. The household-with-children share is 19.7% (2020). The Official Land Price for residential land is around 63,000 yen per m². The Fiscal Capacity Index is 0.64 (2023), a level that supplements a certain portion of standard expenditure with the local allocation tax. What I want to note here is that the Childcare Waitlist is zero (2025), but this number cannot be read on its own. As I touch on later, it must be read together with the fact that the absolute number of children thinned by thirty-two hundred. Why these numbers take this shape does not come into view without going back over the history of the castle town, textiles, rubber and medicine.

Kurume’s skeleton is formed where industries of differing character were piled up in many layers upon a single castle town. In the 1620s, Arima Toyouji entered this land with a domain of 210,000 koku, and thereafter for about two hundred fifty years the Arima clan governed Kurume Castle on the left bank of the Chikugo River and its castle town. The foundation of a castle town, which promoted learning and ordered the town, is set first.

The first industry to take root in that castle town was textiles. In the late Edo period, Kurume kasuri — a cotton fabric said to have been devised by Inoue Den, daughter of a rice merchant, which produces a distinctive blurred pattern by first dyeing the cotton thread and then weaving it — spread as a local industry of the Chikugo region. And this tradition of cotton weaving gave rise to the next layer. The making of cotton tabi advanced to rubber-soled tabi (jika-tabi) in 1922, and in time unfolded into the industry of rubber and tires. In 1931, the Kurume plant of Bridgestone began operating as Japan’s first tire factory — Kurume is the founding ground of this world rubber company. Rubber-related firms such as Moonstar and Asahi Shoes also grew up in this land. It is, in economic geography, an example of the path dependence of an industry in which technology chained from cotton weaving, to rubber-soled tabi, to rubber.

The fourth layer is medicine. In 1928, to make up for a regional shortage of doctors, the Kyushu Medical College (present-day Kurume University) was established. With this as a core, Kurume became a medical city where doctors and medical institutions gather at a high density. Castle town, kasuri, rubber, medicine. Upon a single castle town, industries of differing character were piled up over two hundred years, forming the present of the third city of Fukuoka Prefecture.

What is essential in reading Kurume’s numbers is not to read the seemingly bright figure of a Childcare Waitlist of zero (2025) on its own. In the same city, the absolute number of those under 15 has fallen by some thirty-two hundred in five years. Behind the waitlist falling all the way to zero, it is reasonable to see that the contraction of the denominator — that the number of children to be entrusted is itself thinning — is mixed in to no small degree.

This is, in the direction behind it, the exact opposite of Akashi, which reduced its waitlist by making supply keep pace with demand amid increasing children. It can rather be read as a structure close to that of a regional city where children thin — a near-zero resulting from a thinning of the absolute number of children. The same words "zero waitlist" carry entirely different meanings from city to city — Kurume’s numbers show that plainly. The household-with-children share of 19.7%, too, is not high for a city of three hundred thousand. Even in the third city of Fukuoka Prefecture, holding a castle town and many layers of industry, the number of children quietly thins, and the figure of a zero waitlist includes the aspect of being the reverse side of that shrinking. The numbers reflect not good or bad, but the structure of the town.

Kurume can be read as layers of history piled up over two hundred years. One is its role as the founding ground of the rubber industry, where one of the home bases of a world company beginning with Japan’s first tire factory, and the cluster of related firms, still form a pillar of the town’s industry. Another is the cluster of medicine centered on Kurume University — its face as a regional medical base of the prefecture’s south, where doctors and medical institutions gather at a high density. Further, the textiles of Kurume kasuri, continuing from the late Edo period, and the agriculture of the Chikugo River basin remain as local industries since the castle-town days.

What is peculiar to this town is that industries of differing character are piled up in many layers upon a single castle town. From the castle town of the Arima clan, to Inoue Den’s kasuri, to the rubber that arose from tabi, and to the medicine from a medical school that filled a shortage of doctors — each, in a different age, piled up upon the layer before it. The present, as a core city holding the third population in Fukuoka Prefecture, is supported not by a single industry but by several layers piled up over two hundred years. Beginning with the hand that weaves kasuri, the skill of handling that thread called the founding of rubber, and now connects to the cluster of medicine centered on a university hospital. To work in this town is close to choosing which of these many footholds to stand upon.