Nagareyama-Otakanomori about 60 years ago and today

History of Nagareyama-Otakanomori

The station name Nagareyama-otakanomori came into the world together with the Tsukuba Express, which opened in 2005. When you follow the aerial photographs from the oldest, the way this location changes is completely unlike the others. From 1961-69 to 1987-90, whichever of the five photographs you look at, the area around the center remains fields and flatland woods, and neither the station nor the station area shows even a shadow. The rows of houses thicken only on the north side of the frame, and most of the change happens between those and the last photograph. If you first see that the center did not move through the five photographs and then switch to today's photograph, this frame lets you grasp the speed at which the town rose.

A flat plateau cut by yatsu

The values measured at the five points stay between 18.2 m and 17.1 m. The difference is only a little over 1 m, showing that the surface of the plateau spreading on the east side of the Kanto Plain continues as far as here. Even though the top of the plateau is flat, its edges are valleys cut in by narrow streams. In the southwest of the aerial photograph a valley line meanders with woods and a long, narrow water surface, and small lots can also be seen on the valley floor. It is a division of land use in which the paddies that use water were placed in the valleys and the fields and woods on the flat surface. On the plateaus of Kanto, such narrow valleys are called yatsu. The many yatsu cut into the edges of the plateau fix the outline of the flat surface, and if you follow the lines where green extends narrowly while bending in the aerial photograph, you can trace that outline.

The positions of homes also follow this landform. On top of the plateau roofs line up along the roads, and on the slopes descending into the valleys there are almost no houses. The hazard maps published by the City of Nagareyama and Chiba Prefecture show as ranges the places where water collects easily, so it is worth looking at them laid over the highs and lows of the landform.

Five photographs of continuing fields and woods

The 1961-69 photograph is a mosaic in which fields divided into small squares and flatland woods sunk in black line up alternately. Two roads serve as landmarks: one passes from the northwest of the frame through the center and out to the southeast, and the other runs straight north to south in the east of the frame. Roofs line up along them like strung beads, and toward the north of the frame there is also a compact settlement. Around the center almost no buildings can be seen. Each field is small, and their directions are not aligned either. They were not divided to match the slope of the land; it is the form of land opened little by little from the roads and the homesteads. The woods remain between them as bands and masses, drawing intricate outlines where they meet the fields. You can read that the surface of the plateau was not one continuous farmland but a patchwork of fields cut open and woods left standing.

The 1974-78 photograph is in color, and the tones look divided, brown in the upper half and green in the lower half. In the northwest of the frame the settlement has spread as a surface, changing into an area densely packed with fine roofs. At the center left of the frame a block appears where long, narrow white roofs line up in many rows at equal intervals. The coarseness of the grain does not let you name its use, but this block keeps appearing in the same position in every photograph from then on.

In the two photographs of 1979-83 and 1984-86, the depth of the green stands out. From west to south of the center compact flatland woods remain as masses, edged around by lots of fields. The diagonal road shows white and thick, and the buildings along it have increased too. In the upper right of the frame a block spreads where many large gray-white roofs line up. From the size of the roofs they look like warehouses or factories, but you cannot tell from the photograph anything beyond their shape and extent. By 1987-90 the northern half of the frame is almost filled with rows of houses, and along the eastern road a block where several round white structures line up and a building with a large white roof also appear. Even so, the area around the center remains fields and woods, and not once in the five photographs does it become an urban area.

A station area that rose in 20 years

The aerial photograph as of 2026 shows a look that is hard to believe is the same frame. A thin straight line pierces the area around the center diagonally, and on both sides of it buildings with large white roofs and tall buildings casting dark shadows gather. The streets are divided in an orderly way with the station as the axis, and the way the lines are drawn is clearly different from the winding old roads. The order in which the tracks came and the town came after can be read in this one photograph. The Tsukuba Express and the Tobu Noda Line cross here, and the center of the town was fixed as a transfer station. Northeast of the center a building with a large roof accompanied by wide paving has been placed, and its area is dozens of times that of the surrounding houses. The rows of houses connecting from the northwest of the frame reach the station area without a break, and the boundary that separated town and farmland in 1987-90 can no longer be found anywhere in the frame.

Not everything was replaced. From the center left to the lower left of the frame, part of the flatland woods that appeared as a mass in 1984-86 remains in dark green. The station name, taken from the woods where goshawks (otaka) live, is a memory of the woods that spread over this flat plateau. To its west, the rows of long, narrow roofs and the block of wide paving that appeared in 1974-78 remain without changing position or direction. Toward the right of the frame a meandering band of green extends as a remnant of a valley line, and near it a green square that looks like a sports ground can also be seen. The surface of fields and woods did not turn into town wholesale; the valleys and the woods were surrounded by the urban area while keeping their shape.

The record of values also reflects the youth of this town. At a residential area in Otakanomori-minami 1-chome, about 330 m from the location, the record begins in 2020, at 241,000 yen per square meter. That became 370,000 yen in 2025, and in 2026 it is 428,000 yen, the highest value in the record up to the 2026 official land prices (Chika Koji). A rise of a little over 1.5 times in five years is a shape rarely seen in the series of other locations. Because this point began to be measured after the town was built, no year in which it turned downward has entered the record yet.

The fields and woods that did not move through five photographs turn into a station-area town in the last one. If you go back and forth through the eras, you only need to watch the area around the center. If you return to today after confirming five times that there was nothing in the same place, the shortness of about 20 years stays with you as something felt.