Niigata Bandai City about 60 years ago and today

History of Niigata Bandai City

As you move the eras of the aerial photographs toward the older side, the southern half of the frame fills with a grid of paddies. Bright and dark rectangles line up alternately, divided by narrow ridges and waterways. The town begins at the northern edge of the grid, and from there to the water surface of the Shinano River in the northwest the town is packed in. Bandai City is in a block on the side of that packed band close to the river. The height of the land is 0.4 m at the central measuring point, and both north and south are -0.3 m, a row of numbers going back and forth across sea level. The town sits on the sand and soil that the Shinano River piled up just before its mouth, and there is no high place anywhere. The position between the station and the river is on a route people pass along, but it was also a place where a flat area could be secured all together. In the photographs of the older eras, a surface with a texture different from the rows of houses appears in this block.

A surface that gathers into gray

In the 1945-50 photograph, the Shinano River lies diagonally from the upper left to the lower left of the frame. The water is a gray without shading, and the boundary with the town on both banks is cut sharply. On the northwest side of the river fine-textured rows of houses are densely packed, and the shadows of roofs continue as black grains. The southeast side is also rows of houses, but here the lines of the streets are straight and the sizes of the lots are even. In one block on that southeast side there is a surface unlike the graininess around it. There are no outlines of houses inside it; it is painted in a flat, mottled brightness and is one block larger than the surrounding blocks. It is clear that something other than rows of houses occupied it, but the grain of the photograph does not let you follow even the shapes of the roofs. From the center of the frame toward the upper right a long, narrow, flat band washed out white runs diagonally, with short dark lines scattered in rows inside it. A dark waterway meanders along the eastern edge of the band, and south of it the land turns into settlements and paddies.

Station grounds in a spindle shape

It is in 1961-69 that the grounds of Niigata Station can be seen best. A lens shape long east to west lies slightly below the center of the frame, packed inside with dozens of thin parallel lines. The bundle of lines is squeezed thin at the western end, widens toward the east and then narrows again. The grid of paddies lies south of the grounds, with light and dark rectangles lined up to the bottom edge of the frame. Rows of houses lie to the north, increasing in density toward the river. The block that gathered into gray in the previous era has changed in this era into small and medium buildings lined up along the grid of streets. A few rectangles larger than their surroundings are mixed in, but they do not show well enough to tell the orientation of the buildings or the shape of the roofs. If you move your eye upward, there is a long, narrow strip of land in the river, with long, narrow white buildings lined up facing the same direction on it. It looks like a place for handling cargo. In the upper right corner there is a spot where many white circles gather, also on the side near the river mouth.

The only photograph in color

Among the past eras, only the single photograph of 1974-78 is in color. The grid of paddies is painted in separate browns, ochers and greens, and the difference in how each lot is cultivated shows directly as a difference in color. The town side is gray-white, with red and blue roofs mixed in here and there. The boundary between paddies and town moves most in this photograph; the rows of houses enter the grid like tongues and seem to fill the rectangles one at a time. When you bring your eye back to the southeast side of the river, a large reddish rectangular roof has appeared within the blocks. It covers an area many times that of the surrounding buildings with a single roof, and to its northwest large bright white rectangles line up. In the range where small and medium buildings lined up in 1961-69, the unit of building size itself has been replaced. The station grounds look as if the number of lines has decreased, and instead a thick road crossing over the grounds spans north to south. On the right side of the frame there is a place where roads bend and overlap in many layers, which looks like a road structure split into upper and lower levels. The spot of white circles in the upper right corner is in the same place in this era too.

By the time the large roof appeared, the way the land in this block was used had been replaced all at once. You cannot tell from the aerial photographs anything beyond the look before and after. In 1961-69 small and medium buildings lined up along the grid of streets, and in 1974-78 a single roof covering the space of several lots of the block sat there. Because there is no photograph of the era in between, you cannot tell from the photographs when or what moved. You can read the order. A back-office function that used a large site all together withdrew from this place, and blocks for gathering people came in afterward. The position on a route between Niigata Station and the Shinano River changed at this time into the position of a destination.

A group of blue-green roofs

The change over the more than 40 years after that appears all together in the latest photograph. On the southeast side of the river, blue-green roofs can be seen clustered together. One is a rectangle long north to south, and the other sits to its south in a bent shape. The blue-green stands out among the surrounding gray-white roofs, so it serves as a landmark when going back and forth through the eras. Around the roofs wide paved surfaces open, and many tall white box-shaped buildings stand. They are slightly offset from the position of the large roof that was reddish in 1974-78, and you cannot tell from the photographs alone whether the same building was repainted. If you turn your eye outside the blocks, almost none of the grid of paddies remains. The range where light and dark rectangles lined up in 1961-69 is filled with roads and roofs, and only the lines of narrow waterways remain, bending, inside the town. The spindle shape of the station grounds keeps its width, but new structures cross over the bundle of lines. On the long, narrow strip of land in the river, large white roofs and long quay walls line up.

The numbers for the height of the land hardly move whichever direction you turn. The eastern measuring point is 0.4 m, the same as the center, the west is 0.2 m, and north and south are -0.3 m. The difference between the highest point and the lowest point is only 0.7 m. On land with no slope, which way water will move cannot be read from the elevation numbers. That task is taken on by the official hazard map published by the City of Niigata.

The land price record has a mountain shape that rises, falls and comes back a little. The observation point is a residential area at 1-70 Abumi, Chuo Ward, Niigata, 863 m from this location. Per square meter, it started at 118,000 yen in 1983 and reached 240,000 yen in 1992. This is the peak in the record up to the 2026 official land prices (Chika Koji). The fall was not all at once; it marked 148,000 yen in 2002 and 130,000 yen in 2010, and stopped falling at 117,000 yen in 2016 and 2017, which is the bottom up to the 2026 publication. It is less than half of the 240,000 yen of 1992, and a value just 1,000 yen below the 118,000 yen of 1983. In the 2026 publication it is 150,000 yen, recovering from the bottom but staying at about 60% of 1992. Over these 40 years, the curve of this observation point gave back almost all of what it gained.