Redevelopment of former factory sites compared in aerial photographs

Published: August 11, 2026 / About 14 min read

Factories are the easiest thing to pick out in aerial photographs

In old aerial photographs, factories are far easier to find than residential areas. Their roofs are large, and their shadows fall long to match. Roofs raised only on the north side to let in light line up thinly and regularly as the stripes of sawtooth roofs, and they can be picked out even in grainy photographs. The way the spur lines for bringing in raw materials and products are drawn in from the main line to the back of the site also remains clearly visible.

Each type of factory leaves its own mark in the photographs. A spinning or machinery factory shows large roofs lined with stripes, a factory handling gas or oil shows bright circles, and a shipyard shows long, narrow notches cutting into the water and the shadows of cranes. All of these have a different texture from rows of houses, so if you move the era slider, you can follow with your eyes the moment when only that lot is replaced as a whole. This article lines up 11 places where such a replacement happened.

Brewery sites that became towns

The companies that typically supplied land for urban redevelopment in Japan were the beer companies.

Where Yebisu Garden Place stands, there was Sapporo Breweries' Ebisu brewery. In the first place, the station name and place name Ebisu come from a freight station set up to ship out Yebisu beer. In the 1961-69 photograph, the brewery buildings and spur lines spread over the slope climbing to the Meguro plateau. After the brewery moved, Yebisu Garden Place opened in 1994. The texture value of the photograph rose from 15.1 to 42.2, and the mean pixel difference is 23.4.

The site of Sapporo Factory was a Sapporo Breweries brewery whose origins go back to the Hokkaido Development Commission's brewery (Kaitakushi Bakushu Jozosho), founded in 1876. Its position east of the Sosei River remained industrial land for a long time, while the blocks of Sapporo were being laid out in a grid alongside it. In 1993 it was reborn as the commercial facility Sapporo Factory, and the red brick buildings were preserved and put to use. The texture value of the photograph goes from 9.7 to 35.6. You can see four old eras here, from 1945-50 to 1984-86, and the period when it was industrial land fits within them as it is.

The location Around Amagasaki Q's Mall is the center of the industrial city of Amagasaki, built around a Kirin Brewery brewery. In the 1961-69 photograph, sawtooth-roofed buildings and spur lines are gathered on the north side of the station, surrounded on the outside by housing and fields. On the site, a commercial facility opened in 2009, and it has operated under the name Amagasaki Q's Mall since 2013. A hospital and residential blocks were also placed in the same lot. The texture value of the photograph goes from 16.9 to 45.6. Because this place can be followed from the photograph from around 1928, you can go back and forth in one frame among three periods: when the area around the station was fields, when the factory filled the land, and when it was replaced by a commercial facility.

Spinning mill sites became canals and parks

Canal City Hakata (Former Kanebo Mill) is the site of Kanebo's Fukuoka mill, which stood on the east bank of the Naka River. The commercial facility that opened in 1996 is known for its design, which runs a canal through the center of the site. The texture value of the photograph went from 12.8 to 38.3, and the mean pixel difference was 20.2. The shopping streets of Nakasu and Kawabata are just to the north, and in the old photographs you can confirm the layout in which only the factory lot was a large open space in the middle of the town.

Former Kurashiki Tivoli Park is the site of a spinning mill that stood north of Kurashiki Station. In the 1979-83 photograph, a lot that looks like a sports ground can be made out within the site. After the mill stopped operating in the 1990s, Kurashiki Tivoli Park opened in 1997 and closed at the end of 2008. Since 2011, a commercial facility has been open on the site. It is an unusual course, replaced twice, from factory to park and from park to commercial facility, and the roughly 11 years when it was a park do not remain in the old photographs. The texture value of the photograph goes from 9.6 to 29.6.

Station fronts blocked by electrical and machinery factories

There was a Toshiba factory on the site of Lazona Kawasaki. Although it lies at the west exit of Kawasaki Station, in the photographs from 1961-69 through 1987-90 the station front stays blocked by the factory site. Lazona Kawasaki Plaza opened in 2006, and the character of the town on the east and west sides of the station switched. The texture value of the photograph goes from 13.6 to 32.9.

Osaki Garden City is also a place where a factory occupied land near the station. Even after Osaki Station opened in 1901, the area along the valley floor of the Meguro River continued to be used as the site of an electrical factory. In 2002 a line from the waterfront was extended to Osaki Station, which became a transfer hub, and in the late 2010s the factory site opened as blocks combining offices, homes, and plazas. The texture value of the photograph goes from 15.5 to 41.0, and the mean pixel difference is 27.1. At this location the elevation differs greatly between the floor and the rim of the valley: against 4.2 m at the center, the western measurement point shows 15.8 m and the southern one 12.5 m.

Shipbuilding and metal, former sites lined up along the water

Okawabata River City 21 is a place whose origins are especially old among those taken up here. A shipyard was set up on Ishikawajima, next to Tsukuda Island, in 1853 at the end of the Edo period, and it later became the site of Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries. In the 1961-69 photograph, docks and cranes line up as if filling the sandbar in the Sumida River. After the shipyard moved, high-rise residential towers went up as Okawabata River City 21. The texture value of the photograph goes from 17.5 to 38.7, and the mean pixel difference is 23.5.

Universal City (Western Konohana Waterfront) stands on land made by filling in the mouth of the Aji River. In the old photographs, factory buildings handling metal, facilities for assembling ship hulls, and round tanks for storing oil are packed tightly along the water. Universal Studios Japan opened in 2001, and in the same year Universal City Station was added to the Sakurajima Line. Even in the photograph as of 2026, round tanks, ship hulls, and red cranes remain in the southwest corner of the frame. The texture value of the photograph goes from 18.3 to 50.6. The elevation is -0.2 m at the center and -1.2 m at the northern measurement point, almost the same height as the water surface.

Round gas tanks and the site of an army factory

Where the silver round roof of Kyocera Dome Osaka (Iwasaki-cho) sits, there were facilities for making and storing gas. This is because the flat land on the west bank of the Kizu River, facing the river, suited the work of bringing in heavy raw materials by ship. In the 1961-69 photograph, five white circles run north to south in a gentle arc. Osaka Dome opened on the site in 1997, and it has been called Kyocera Dome Osaka under a naming rights deal since 2006. In the photograph as of 2026, three round tanks remain south of the roof, showing that only the southern corner of the site continues the same role. The texture value of the photograph goes from 20.3 to 42.7.

Morinomiya (Former Osaka Army Arsenal) is the site of the Osaka Army Arsenal, which spread east of Osaka Castle. It was heavily damaged in the air raid of August 1945, and by the 1961-69 photograph the western half of the burned ruins was being laid out as a park. Osaka-jo Hall opened in 1983, and in the 1984-86 photograph it can be made out as a large oval roof. The texture value of the photograph goes from 20.6 to 42.2, and the mean pixel difference is 24.5. The elevation is 0.9 m at the eastern measurement point and 11.1 m at the western one, which shows that the factory was placed on the boundary between the castle's plateau and the low land.

Why were factories on the waterfront and on valley floors?

If you line up the elevations, the former sites turn out to have something in common in where they stand. Universal City is -0.2 m at the center, Kyocera Dome Osaka 0.4 m, the area around Amagasaki Q's Mall 1.4 m, Okawabata River City 21 2.6 m, and Lazona Kawasaki 2.8 m. All are flat land close to the water surface, suited to work that brought in heavy raw materials and fuel by ship and used large amounts of water. The 4.8 m of Former Kurashiki Tivoli Park and the 5.3 m of Canal City Hakata also fall on surfaces rising only slightly above a river or port.

On the other hand, Yebisu Garden Place, at 15.8 m at the center and 27.8 m at the southern measurement point, and Sapporo Factory, at 19.7 m, are examples placed on top of a plateau or on the surface of an alluvial fan. In some cases, water quality or closeness to consumers decided the location more than the weight of raw materials. Osaki Garden City and Morinomiya are locations where low and high surfaces share one frame.

For preparedness in low-lying areas, check the information published on the Hazard Map Portal Site of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

The size of the change in the photograph values

The texture value of a photograph expresses how much fine pattern that one photograph contains. A frame lined with the large roofs of factories tends to have a monotonous pattern, and when it is replaced by a town of housing or commercial facilities, narrow streets and small roofs increase and the value rises. The mean pixel difference is the size of the gap when an old photograph and the photograph as of 2026 are laid over each other.

The highest texture value is Universal City's 50.6, and the largest mean pixel difference is Former Kurashiki Tivoli Park's 29.0. Kurashiki's value as of 2026 is 29.6, the lowest of the 11 locations, yet its gap when the photographs are laid over each other is the largest. This can be read as the result of the positions of the buildings being replaced entirely, from factory to park to commercial facility.

Three patterns traced by land prices

The redevelopment of former factory sites also left traces of different shapes in the series of nearby official land prices (Chika Koji). The figures below are not values for the sites themselves but the records of observation points placed in residential areas a few hundred meters to about 1 km from each location. The distances are close for Ebisu at 453 m, Tsukuda at 270 m, Morinomiya at 304 m, and Osaki at 495 m, while Universal City is farther away at 988 m, so the character of the town also differs a little. All figures are within the range available as of September 2026 (up to 2026).

Ebisu and Tsukuda show the pattern that broke through upward. The residential area of Ebisu-nishi 2-chome rose from 1,520,000 yen in 2011 to 3,900,000 yen in the 2026 publication, about 2.6 times. Tsukuda 2-chome went from 650,000 yen in 2005 to 1,910,000 yen in 2026, about 2.9 times in 21 years. However, both records start in the 2000s or later and do not span the time before and after the redevelopment. The movement in Kita-Horie, from 455,000 yen in 2017 to 956,000 yen in the 2026 publication, is in the same situation: it is a record that began 20 years after 1997, when the ballpark opened.

Kawasaki, Hakata, Sapporo, Osaki, and Morinomiya show the pattern that came back from a valley. The swing at Morinomiya is the largest.

Amagasaki, Universal City, and Kurashiki show the pattern that rose in the few years up to the 2026 publication after staying flat for a long time. Hama 2-chome fell from 555,000 yen in 1991, the ceiling up to the 2026 publication, to 182,000 yen in 2012-2014, and in 2025 it was 190,000 yen, almost unchanged. In the 2026 publication it is 195,000 yen. Tanaka 1-chome went from 214,000 yen in 2013 to 238,000 yen in the 2026 publication, and records from more than ten years after the amusement park opened line up within a narrow band. Hiyoshi-cho rose from 61,500 yen in 1983 to 126,000 yen in 1995 and is 110,000 yen in the 2026 publication. Although Amagasaki is a location where the texture value of the photographs moved greatly, its land price observation point hardly moved from 2012 to 2023. This mismatch between the photographs and the land prices is exactly the part that makes it worth looking at the two side by side.

The length of the record differs from location to location, and a series running since 1983 cannot be compared with the same yardstick as a series that began in the 2010s.

What to look for

Because factories leave the outline of their sites strongly, the towns on former sites also inherit the shape of the lots. As you step through the eras, look for how far the outlines of the vanished buildings survive as the edges of new roads and plazas. Examples where the outline of the site remains are often found in the corners of former sites, like the three round tanks lined up south of Kyocera Dome Osaka and the round tanks and cranes left in the southwest of Universal City.

The traces of spur lines are also worth following. There are places where, after the factory disappeared, only the gentle curves of the tracks remain as the shape of roads and walkways. In the area around Amagasaki Q's Mall or at Lazona Kawasaki, put your finger on the position of the tracks in the old photograph and switch to the photograph as of 2026.

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