Saitama-Shintoshin about 60 years ago and today

History of Saitama-Shintoshin

The place name Saitama-Shintoshin is new in the history of this land. Before it, the land here was not a town with a name but railway land extending long and narrow from north to south. Only the two points to the east and north exceed 13 m, and the others are all in the 11 m range. The east is 14 m, the north 13 m, the point at the station 11.5 m, and the west and south both 11.2 m, so the difference between the highest and lowest points does not reach 3 m. Because the three low points line up at the same height, there is no slope to speak of in the north-south direction, and flat ground continues for a long way. Sorting freight cars one by one and regrouping them into trains needs this flatness and length. Before the place name, there was a band. In this area on the border between Omiya and Yono, Japanese National Railways placed the Omiya Rail Yard, and the figure of a spindle-shaped band running vertically through the center of the frame remained the main subject whichever era of the aerial photographs you open. The story of the town begins after that band disappeared.

A band running through the fields

In the 1945-50 aerial photograph, a bundle of tracks runs vertically as a single band from the top edge of the frame to the bottom edge. It is thin at the top, widens like a fan in the middle and converges again, forming a spindle shape. Inside the band, rows that look like long, narrow railcars are packed without gaps, and the lines are too many to count. The main subject of the frame is the tracks. A town area with dense roofs lies in the upper left of the band, where narrow roads branch many times over. Almost all the other land is farmland: from the left half to the lower left, fine lots line up in a grid, and settlements only continue thinly in bands along the roads. Toward the lower left corner, a cluster of white, bright square lots can be seen. Field lots also spread on the right side, and houses surrounded by dark masses of trees are scattered here and there. In the center right and upper right there are several corners where long, narrow buildings of the same shape line up facing the same way. At the right edge a meandering dark line runs down out of the frame, and several white straight north-south roads run vertically through the frame.

By 1961-69 the band appears in exactly the same position in the same spindle shape, and only its two sides grow thicker. This is the era assigned to the viewer's initial display. The town area in the upper left spreads south, and the rows of houses on the west side of the band become dense. The farmland lots have been pushed into the left half and right edge of the frame and the upper right corner. The lines in the band are denser still, and rows of fine dots fill the band. Along the east edge of the band, corners with long, narrow buildings in neat rows line up, and in the middle on the right, dark woods and a streak of water meandering through them can be read. In the upper part a white straight north-south road passes, running straight down through the town area.

A spindle full of freight cars

In 1974-78 color is added, and the texture of the band becomes clear. The band shows brown, and countless parallel lines and the rows of fine dots on them can be told apart. At the top edge it becomes a thin bundle heading out to the north, and at the bottom edge it converges into one and disappears into the town area to the south-southeast. The widest part is a little below the center, and this band takes up almost the whole height of the frame. The surroundings are town area without gaps, and in the left half yellowish-brown field lots remain here and there. In the upper right corner and at the right edge, large lots of fields and paddies still spread in yellowish brown, and in the upper right there is a green square of a sports ground and a small water surface shining blue. On the east side of the band, a corner with buildings with large roofs lined up has appeared.

The 1979-83 photograph sinks as a whole into a dark greenish brown, the color of the season when the plants have withered. The band turns reddish brown, and the rows of railcars filling it show even more densely. Along the west edge of the band, long, narrow white buildings and rows of roofs line up, with the look of facilities handling freight. The sports ground in the upper right shows as brown ground, and green and brown field lots remain at the right edge. Up to this era, the same use continues both inside and outside the band.

A wide trace left empty

Something new is added in the 1984-86 photograph. Along the west edge of the band, a wide white band passes from top to bottom, splits in two a little left of center, and one branch curves widely toward the lower left and exits through the bottom edge. The whiteness of fresh paving remains, and its curved outline is drawn smoothly. Yet the band of the rail yard is reddish brown as before, and the rows of railcars are still packed in. With the two bands running side by side, it is the busiest photograph of this location.

In 1987-90 that band becomes empty. The bundle of tracks that had lined up densely has disappeared, and the inside of the spindle-shaped outline has become flat gray-brown bare ground. If you look closely, traces of thin vertical stripes remain on the ground, showing only that tracks were once there. There are no rows of railcars anywhere. In the top third of the frame, a bundle of tracks still remains and runs alongside a white elevated structure, but the wide part from the center downward lies there as mere vacant land. It is a photograph in the unusual state where only the outline of the band remains. The town area around it is as dense as ever in this era too, and the sports ground in the upper right is in the same position.

The use of the former rail yard site was settled in stages. Under the Fourth National Capital Region Basic Plan in 1986, the former City of Omiya and the former City of Urawa were designated as business core cities. Then in 1989 it was decided to move national government bodies together to the former site of the Omiya Rail Yard, and in the same year the Saitama-Shintoshin Land Readjustment Project received its city planning decision. In 2000 the relocation of 18 national government bodies began.

The arched great roof and tall buildings

The system of transport that gathered and sorted freight cars was changed in the 1980s, and a wide rail yard was no longer needed. In 1987 Japanese National Railways was divided and privatized, and the question of what to do with the long, narrow vacant land left within 30 km of central Tokyo was raised anew. It took shape in 2000. In that year the town was opened and Saitama-Shintoshin Station began service. A joint government office building gathering the local branches of national government bodies was placed there, Saitama Super Arena, a multipurpose facility with a great arched roof, also opened in the same year, and the former site became a town all at once. The following year, 2001, the City of Urawa, the City of Omiya and the City of Yono merged to form the City of Saitama, and this area was positioned near the center of the new city.

In today's photograph, buildings stand where the contents of the band used to be. A little above the center sits the great arched roof shining white, and southeast of it, tall buildings in a deep dark color continue in a single north-south row. The surroundings are filled without gaps by fine gray roofs, and large-scale structures are only inside the former site. The great roof is also the only thing with a curved outline, and the blocks surrounding it are all divided by straight lines. If you go back and forth with the 1987-90 photograph, you can see that the same range was bare ground with remaining vertical stripes. On the other hand, the outline of the band itself is still alive. The line of tracks running from the top edge to the bottom edge follows the same course, and the band of the white elevated structure running alongside on the west keeps exactly the same shape, splitting in two at the center left and curving to the lower left. The square of the sports ground in the upper right has not moved either. The skeleton of the land was inherited, and only the things inside it were replaced. The things inherited also include the height of the ground. You cannot tell from the aerial photographs how far water is assumed to come. The City of Saitama's official hazard map shows that range as a map.

The value records begin in 2000, the same year the town opened. The residential land in Kamiochiai 5-chome, about 660 m from the station, was 261,000 yen per square meter in that year, 2000. From there it fell to 253,000 yen in 2012, and then turned upward to 349,000 yen in 2026, the highest value up to the 2026 official land prices (Chika Koji). It has bottomed out once and then come back above its starting level.