Aira-shi

In the latest Population Census the population is about seventy-six thousand (76,348 in 2020). Because this city was established in 2010 when three towns were newly bound into one, the population statistics for the city area cover the period from 2010 onward, when the post-merger figures are reflected in the Population Census. From the 74,809 of that 2010 it has increased to 75,173 in 2015 and 76,348 in 2020.

Looking inside, the figure of a bay-end city that gathers people commuting to the neighboring large city appears. The share aged 65 and over rose from 29.1% in 2015 to 31.4% in 2020, passing three in ten. The household-with-children share is 21.8% in 2020, and the crude birth rate is 7.7 per thousand in 2020. The Childcare Waitlist remained at eleven each in both 2024 and 2025 — not zero. This can be read as the shortage of childcare places peculiar to a town whose population is increasing. The Fiscal Capacity Index was 0.50 in fiscal 2023 — a level able to cover about half of expenditure with its own tax revenue. The figure shows in the numbers: a land at the inner end of a bay, increasing its population after the merger while holding a shortage of childcare places. Why it takes this form cannot be read without going back to the past of the bay-end position, the great camphor, and population increase.

What supports this town’s frame is the position of a knot of the roads at the inner end of a bay, a thousand-year great camphor, the neighboring large city, and the merger of three towns. The starting layer is the inner end of the bay and the great camphor. This land opens at the inner end of a deeply indented bay, and from of old was a knot where the land roads gathered. In the precincts of a shrine rises a giant camphor said to have lived for some sixteen hundred years, counted among the nation’s leading giant trees. The position of the inner end of the bay, and the great camphor that has lived a thousand and several hundred years, were the old foundation of this land.

This bay-end land opened, in modern times, as a place to live. This land adjoins to its north the large central city of the prefecture, and an expressway and a railway link the two. In time, people who commute to the neighboring large city came to dwell in this bay-end land. The path to becoming a city, too, mirrors this town. In 2010, the three bay-end towns were newly bound into one, and the present city was established. The knot of the roads that opened at the inner end of a bay gathered people from an old age, became in modern times the commuting destination of the neighboring large city, and upon that past the three-town merger was layered — and so the present Aira was made.

What characterizes Aira is that, while it holds the past of a bay-end neighboring a large city to its north, it is increasing its population after the merger. Seen in the post-merger city area, from the 74,809 of 2010 to the 76,348 of 2020, it increased slightly over ten years. While many regional cities lose population, behind this town increasing lies the position of being able to commute to the large central city of the prefecture by expressway and railway, and it is said to be one of the towns into which the most people move in the prefecture.

As an expression of that, the Childcare Waitlist remained at eleven each in both 2024 and 2025 — not zero. The shortage of childcare places peculiar to a town whose population is increasing appears honestly in the numbers. The household-with-children share is 21.8% in 2020, and the crude birth rate is 7.7 per thousand in 2020. The Fiscal Capacity Index of 0.50 is a level able to cover about half of expenditure with its own tax revenue. On the other hand, the share aged 65 and over passed three in ten at 31.4% in 2020 — even as the population increases, the older layer too is thick. The land at the inner end of a bay neighboring a large city to its north is now, after the merger, increasing its population while bearing the challenge of an increasing town, the shortage of childcare places. The population increased after the merger, the waitlist is not zero, and aging too passes three in ten. The position of being able to commute to the neighboring large city draws in young households, that inflow generates the shortage of childcare places, while the layer that has lived here from before also gathers years — three movements peculiar to an increasing town appear overlaid.

In Aira, several faces of differing character overlap. One is the past of a knot of the roads at the inner end of a bay — opening at the inner end of a deeply indented bay, where from of old the land roads gathered. Another is the character of a land of a thousand-year great camphor — in the precincts of a shrine rises a giant camphor said to have lived for some sixteen hundred years, counted among the nation’s leading giant trees. And it bears the face of the commuter belt of the neighboring large city — adjoining to its north the large central city of the prefecture, linked by expressway and railway, gathering people who commute. The position of a knot of the roads at the inner end of a bay called into one and the same land a place where the roads gathered in an old age, and now a place where people who commute to the large city dwell.

The knot of the roads that opened at the inner end of a bay gathered, in the old days, the land roads, and now settles people who commute to the large city, increasing its population. It is a town where an old land over which a great camphor of a thousand and several hundred years rises has inherited the role of a residential district that is the commuting destination. The geography of "the inner end of a bay adjoining to its north the prefecture’s central city" overlays in one and the same land a knot where the roads gather and a residential district whose population increases.