Forty years of official land prices laid over aerial photographs of new towns

Published: August 11, 2026 / About 15 min read

Locations with 40 years of figures on record

The official land prices (Chika Koji) are a record built up one point at a time from prices as of January 1 each year, and they let you follow the same point over a long period. For a residential area with a series running since 1983, you can draw a line graph spanning more than 40 years. While aerial photographs capture how the land looks era by era, the official land prices mark the valuation of the same place every year. If you read a photograph showing the bare ground just after grading side by side with that year's price, the history of the town appears twice over.

New towns opened on hills suit this layered reading. The original terrain was forest or paddies in the valleys, and it changed so much that the land before and after grading looks like different land in the photographs. Moreover, the grading was concentrated in the 1960s and 1970s, and 1983, when the price records begin, falls about ten years after the towns opened. The roles are divided: the photographs cover the time before the place became a town, and the prices cover the time after.

This article takes up five locations opened on hilly land. On the photograph side, in every case the 1961-69 photograph falls around the time of grading, while on the price side the length of the series differs from one location to another. The long ones run from 1983, and the short ones have records only from 2016. Even if you think you are applying the same yardstick, the things you can read from it change when the length of the recorded window differs.

The recorded window differs by location

First, here are the ranges of the values recorded at the five locations. All prices are per square meter, and each is the series for a residential area near the location. Every series covered here runs up to the 2026 publication.

In the same table, a location whose highest year up to the 2026 publication is 1988 sits next to one whose highest year is 2026. The gap between the highest and lowest values also varies widely, from locations where the highest is more than four times the lowest to one where the gap is only 5,000 yen.

Forty years recorded by a danchi built on a wooded hill

Otokoyama Danchi is a large-scale danchi (public housing complex) in the City of Yawata, Kyoto Prefecture, where residents began moving in in 1972. It lies on the hill you look up at to the east from Kuzuha Station on the Keihan Main Line; the City of Hirakata, where the station is, is in Osaka Prefecture, while the danchi is in Kyoto Prefecture, so commuting to work and school in this town has long crossed the prefectural border. Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine stands at the northern end of the hills, and the name Otokoyama has long been known because of it. It was the Japan Housing Corporation that cut open the hill, and, overlapping the period when the town was placed on the hill, Yawata Town became a city in 1977.

On the photograph side, the 1961-69 photograph still shows a mountain. Woods cover the hill, small terraced paddies reach deep into the valleys, and irrigation ponds holding water show up black in the folds of the hill. In the 1974-78 photograph this changes to a bright band of graded land cutting diagonally through the center of the frame, with slab-shaped residential buildings lined up on it. If you compare the 1961-69 photograph with today's photograph, the texture value, which expresses the fineness of detail, rises from 12.5 to 31.8. The elevation measurement points on the ridge fall between 45.3 m and 51.3 m, while only one point in the east drops to 31.2 m, and the numbers also show that this is a platform sloping down one way toward the low land of the Kizu River.

The price record continues at a residential area in Otokoyama Kanefuri, about 710 m away. It starts at 130,000 yen in 1983 and rises every year to 150,000 yen in 1988, but the rise over those five years stays at about 1.2 times. The movement changes after that. It climbs to 172,000 yen in 1989, 328,000 yen in 1990, and 377,000 yen in 1991, the highest value in the record up to the 2026 publication. That is 2.9 times the 1983 value.

The decline lasts a long time from there. In the 15 years from 1991 to 2006, there is not a single year above the previous year. The 102,000 yen of 2006 does not reach 30% of the value in the highest year up to the 2026 publication. It keeps falling with small ups and downs in between, and the 91,300 yen of 2021 becomes the lowest value up to the 2026 publication. From 2021 to 2026 it rose five years in a row to 103,000 yen, but it has not returned to the 130,000 yen of 1983. The fact that it remains below the starting point of the record is the shortest way to describe this location's line graph since 1983.

Years that jumped to nearly double in a single year

If you set the three long series side by side, the years in which the rises were concentrated become clear. In Otokoyama Kanefuri, 172,000 yen in 1989 moved to 328,000 yen in 1990; near Minami-Machida, 246,000 yen in 1987 moved to 653,000 yen in 1988; and near Myodani, 240,000 yen in 1989 moved to 394,000 yen in 1990. Each is a step of 1.6 to 2.7 times in one year. Every location has a year that jumped to nearly double in a single year between 1988 and 1991.

The interesting point is that only some locations let you see the years of these steps in the photographs. At Otokoyama Danchi the eras you can choose run from around 1936-42 to 1979-83, and there is no photograph close to the years when the price jumped. Myodani also goes only up to 1984-86. Of the five locations taken up here, only two, Minami-Machida and Tama Plaza, have a 1987-90 photograph. If you want to look down on the few years when prices moved the most, the quickest way is to step through the eras at these two locations.

A place where fields and mixed woods became a commercial town

The 1961-69 photograph of Minami-Machida Grandberry Park shows strip-shaped fields along the Sakai River and woods in the valleys. Neither the station nor the tracks appear anywhere in the frame yet. In 1976 the Den-en-toshi Line was extended and Minami-Machida Station opened, and in 2000 a commercial facility opened on the south side of the station. That facility closed in 2017, and when the rebuilt facility opened in 2019, the station was renamed Minami-Machida Grandberry Park Station. The elevation measurement point in the center is 71.7 m, and the texture value changes from 15.9 to 29.4 between the 1961-69 photograph and today's photograph.

In the residential area of Tsuruma 3-chome, about 360 m away, prices rose five years in a row, from 195,000 yen in 1983 to 653,000 yen in 1988. The rise exceeds 3.3 times. In terms of the photographs, this overlaps the period when the graded land on the west side filled with roofs and the leveling southeast of the station advanced.

The movement after that stretches much longer than the rise. In the 18 years from 1988 to 2006 there was not one year above the previous year, and in 2005 and 2006 the price fell to 195,000 yen. That is exactly the same amount as in 1983, when the record began. It is a series that returned to the same amount twice. The direction changes after that, and from 2013 to 2026 there is no year below the previous year. In 2026 it is 314,000 yen, about 1.6 times the 1983 value and just under 50% of 1988, the highest up to the 2026 publication. The look of the town has been replaced by the large roofs in front of the station and the green of the park, but the price line is still far from the height of 1988.

A town that cut the hills and filled the sea

Suma New Town, which includes Myodani, is a town the City of Kobe created by cutting away the hills of Suma on a large scale. The earth cut out was carried to the sea and used for reclamation such as Port Island. It was a project known as "the mountains go to the sea". Myodani Station on the subway opened in 1977, and the elevation measurement point is 97.7 m in the center and 111.7 m in the south. The texture value changes from 15.9 to 39.4 between the 1961-69 photograph and today's photograph, and the numbers also show how far the woods of the hills were replaced by blocks.

The residential area of Ryugadai 7-chome, about 500 m away, has a record that starts in 1989. This means the record began partway up the climb, and 240,000 yen in 1989 becomes 425,000 yen in 1991. This is a fast pace of nearly 1.8 times in two years: at this location, a movement close to the rise that the other two locations took five years to make fits into the first two years of the record.

The downward side has a full 20 years. From 1991 to 2011 there was no year above the previous year. The 136,000 yen of 2011 is just over 30% of the value in the highest year up to the 2026 publication, and this value continues for three years until 2013. From 2013 to 2026 there is no year below the previous year, and 2026 is 163,000 yen. That is about 1.2 times the lowest value, and the slope of the rise is gentler than at Otokoyama Kanefuri and more modest than at Minami-Machida. Even among three locations that all peaked around 1991, the way they recovered over the following 30-odd years divides cleanly.

A comparison at five-year intervals

For the three locations with long series, here are the values taken every five years. Myodani has no value for 1985 because that is before its series begins.

This table shows that the speed of the decline differs by location. In the five years from 1995 to 2000, Myodani moves only slightly, from 253,000 yen to 232,000 yen, but in the following five years from 2000 to 2005 it drops to 151,000 yen. Near Otokoyama Danchi the price had already entered the 100,000 yen range by 2005, and for the 20 years after that it moves within the narrow band of the 90,000 yen range and the 100,000 yen range. Minami-Machida changes direction at 2005, and its five-yearly values increase four times in a row from there. Even values measured in the same year under the same system differ this much in the shape of their lines from hill to hill.

Two locations with a short observation window

Not every location has a long series. Rakusai New Town is a town the City of Kyoto planned on the hills of Nishikyo Ward, where residents began moving in in 1976. Blocks with town names such as Takenosato and Sakaidani sit on platforms made by cutting the hilltops and filling the valleys. The railway station is outside the frame, and a wide road runs along the backbone of the town. Among the elevation measurement points, the west is the highest at 72.4 m, the east is 56.9 m, and the center is 62.6 m, forming a platform that slopes down one way from west to east. The texture value changes from 18.7 to 41.0 between the 1961-69 photograph and today's photograph.

The record for the residential area of Oeda Kita-Fukunishi-cho 2-chome, about 640 m away, starts in 2016. That is about 40 years after the town was placed on the hill, and no values spanning the time before and after grading remain here. The price falls five years in a row, from 148,000 yen at the start in 2016 to 143,000 yen in 2021. This value stays the same for three years until 2023, rises three years in a row from 2024 to 2026, and in 2026 it returned to 148,000 yen, the same as the start. The highest value in the record up to the 2026 publication, 148,000 yen, came twice, in both 2016 and 2026; the gap from the lowest, 143,000 yen from 2021 to 2023, is 5,000 yen. About ten years of records fit within a very narrow band.

Tama Plaza is a town opened as the core of Tokyu's Tama Den-en-toshi. The 1945-50 photograph shows paddies in yato valleys and mixed woods, and the 1961-69 photograph shows the hills around the time grading began. The station was placed in the mid-1960s. The elevation measurement point is 54 m, and the texture value changes from 15.3 to 42.6, the largest change among the five locations taken up here.

The series for Shin-ishikawa 3-chome, about 270 m away, also starts in 2016. Its content, however, is completely different from that near Rakusai New Town: from 430,000 yen in 2016 to 644,000 yen in 2026, it was above the previous year all ten times. That is 1.5 times in 11 years. In the same 11-year window, one returned to the same value as at the start, and the other rose by 214,000 yen. The point to keep in mind here is that the length of the window changes the conclusion. If you look only at these two locations, you could write either "prices in hill towns do not move" or "they keep rising", but after seeing the three locations with long series, you can tell that both are only cuts taken from 2016 on.

Even on the same kind of hill, the lines do not match

The stretches in each series where the direction was consistent are as follows, written out by location. They were found by tracing the difference from the previous year one year at a time and dividing the series into stretches of only rises, stretches that did not go above the previous year, and stretches that did not go below the previous year.

When the stretches are set out like this, one point stands out: the falling stretches last 15 to 20 years. The rises end in about five years, while the falls take three to four times as many years. At Minami-Machida and Myodani the recovery stretch is also long, at 14 years, and the height each recovered to differs by location. The phrase a peak and a valley remain in one line refers to this kind of asymmetric shape. Even in towns graded in almost the same era, with similar origins of cutting hills to make platforms, the price lines do not fall into the same shape.

Step through the eras to check

The five lines seen here are all records from after the towns were built. The look of the places before they became towns exists only on the photograph side. The photographs are one showing woods over the whole hill and paddies in the valleys, one with only the lines of streets drawn on the bare graded land, and one filled with rows of residential buildings. If you step through them and recall the prices that correspond to each era, the landscape behind the numbers becomes concrete. At Otokoyama Danchi, if you look at the band of graded land in 1974-78 and then place the starting point of 130,000 yen in 1983, it becomes easier to grasp at what point the record began.

The same way of reading applies to other hill towns. At Senri New Town (Senri-Chuo), said to be Japan's first large-scale new town, and at Senboku New Town (Izumigaoka), opened on the hills in the south of Osaka Prefecture, the photographs from before grading also sit alongside the price records. While switching eras, check location by location which changes in the land's appearance the rising and falling stretches overlap with.

The prices in this article are actual examples at each point in time and do not reflect market prices after the article was written.