Ichikawa – Part 1

In cause of my internship by the Ichikawa-government, I choose this town as my study object about identity. This article describes what I know about this town after two days internship.

Ichikawa is a town located in the Chiba-Prefecture. Around 470’000*¹ people are living in Ichikawa, at which the number of inhabitants is fluctuating with 100’000 between daily- and nighttime. The cause is that this town was planned as a residential-town (?when exactly?) for Tokyo. The topography is very flat and wide contrary to the west of Tokyo. And the planning has to seek to a family friendly city-planning.

Historic, the place of Ichikawa was agricultural area. Fields and woods. Agriculture and fishing. After the economic-boom, at beginning of 20^th century, the pression on residential market increased. The fields had to make place for mansions and other building, many farmer became rich by selling her land. This situation built the cityscape that you can still discover old traditional farmer houses beside the mansions.

old house along the historic road from Edo-period (Gyotoku)

 

new house traditional style (same road like above)

 

Short statistic*²:

Households 1925: 3217

Households 2006: 210’519

*¹ März 2007 – Wikipedia

*² 市川市時計年間