PROJECT III
Summary 1
| 1． Population Change after 2015 and the Transition of Urban Areas |
We summarize the results of our analysis here. We first share the urban areas classification based on the population transition during 1970–2005 that have been extracted from the Tokyo Datum-based data.
1．Expanded Cities：46
2．Sustainable/Stable Cities：27
3．Converted Stagnant Cities：15
4．Converted Contracting Cities：19
5．Contracting Cities：11
Please refer here for more details.
We investigated the WGS-based data for each category and observed the population change from 1995 to 2020. Of the 46 Expanded Cities, 24 showed a constantly increasing population during this period, while the other 22, nearly half of the total, had stagnant or declining population growth.
In almost half of the 27 Sustainable/Stable Cities, 14 have relatively stable populations over the period; however, five have increased, and eight have decreased.
Fifteen Converted Stagnant Cities have exhibited stagnant growth or a population decline.
Most Converted Contracting Cities and Contracting Cities have steady population declines. There are only two remarkable exceptions: Tottori, which once belonged to Converted Contracting Cities and has a relatively stable population, and Toyama, which once belonged to the Contracting Cities and increased its population during the term.
| 2．New Patterns of Population Change |
These results rewrite the patterns of population change into the following four categories.
1．Expanded Cities: 29
2．Sustainable/Stable Cities: 14
3．Converted Stagnant Cities: 37
4．Contracting Cities: 36
Regarding the number of cities in each category compared to the previous study, it is evident that Expanded Cities and Sustainable/Stable Cities have decreased while Converted Stagnant Cities and Contracting Cities have increased. This is not only because the former Converted Contracting Cities have been absorbed into Contracting Cities but also because the target period of this research is after 1995, following the collapse of Japan’s bubble economy, not after 1970. We present the concrete details of each category as follows.
Of the 29 Expanded Cities, 24 are urban areas classified as Expanded Cities in the former project: Sapporo, Sendai, Nagareyama, Chiba, Okegawa, Kawagoe, Tokyo, Okazaki, Anjo, Toyota, Nagoya, Otsu, Okayama, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Matsuyama, Fukutsu, Fukuoka, Naha, Ichinomiya, Himeji, Higashihiroshima, Itoshima, and Kusatsu.
The other five urban areas, namely, Takasaki, Yokkaichi, Kurume, Miyazaki, and Okinawa, have changed their categories from Sustainable/Stable Cities to Expanded Cities.14 Sustainable/Stable Cities are Morioka, Fukushima, Kamakura, Nagano, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, Toyohashi, Matsusaka, Kyoto, Osaka/Kobe, Takamatsu, Matsue, Kanazawa, and Kagoshima.
Compared to the former classification, the 13 urban areas previously considered Sustainable/Stable Cities have changed their categories. As mentioned above, five have become Expanded Cities; while the other eight have transitioned into Contracting Cities, namely Yamagata, Niigata, Kochi, Beppu, Kure, Yokosuka, Uji, and Saga.The number of Converted Stagnant Cities has increased from 15 formerly to 37 currently, more than double. The 15 cities remaining in their former category are Ebetsu, Kasukabe, Iwatsuki, Ageo, Tsurugashima, Sakado, Sayama, Hanno, Kanazawahakkei, Isehara, Odawara, Kameoka, Ikoma, Nara, and Oita.
The other 22 Converted Stagnant Cities are urban areas that have changed from earlier Expanded Cities; that is Koriyama, Tsukuba, Ushiku, Utsunomiya, Narita, Iruma, Fukaya, Ome, Atsugi, Hadano, Hiratsuka, Mishima, Yaizu, Toyokawa, Handa, Kashihara, Yamato-Takada, Yonago, Fukuyama, Kumamoto, Sanda, and Fuji.Thirty-six Contracting Cities are divided into three types. The first is 11 urban areas that have maintained their status as Contracting Cities: Otaru, Hachinohe, Nagaoka, Numazu, Takaoka, Gifu, Shimonoseki, Kitakyushu, Sasebo, and Nagasaki.
The second type is 18 urban areas that have been converted from previous Converted Contracting Cities: Kushiro, Tomakomai, Aomori, Ishinomaki, Mito, Matsumoto, Kofu, Wakayama, Asahikawa, Hakodate, Akita, Hirosaki, Aizuwakamatsu, Maebashi, Shimizu, Shunan, Fukui, and Tokushima.
The last is eight urban areas classified as Expanded Cities in our previous research but have exhibiting tendencies of a declining population: Yamagata, Niigata, Kochi, Beppu, Kure, Yokosuka, Uji, and Saga.
However, some exceptions do not meet the above types: Toyama and Tottori. Regarding their population, the former has gradually recovered, and the latter seems to have stopped decreasing gradually. Both have emerged from their previous state of Contracting Cities and Converted Contracting Cities.
ConTAct us AT
Prof. Kazushi Tamano
2-11 Wakaba Mihama-ku
Chiba-City, Chiba, Japan 261-8586
(The Open University of Japan)
tamano＠k.email.ne.jp