Senboku New Town (Toga-Mikita) about 60 years ago and today

History of Senboku New Town (Toga-Mikita)

Peaches grown across the hills gave the town name Momoyamadai (momo means peach). According to the introduction to place names by Minami Ward of the City of Sakai, the town names of Senboku New Town, developed by Osaka Prefecture, were made uniform in the form "-dai", following Senri New Town, which was built earlier. Around Toga-Mikita Station, the names Harayamadai, Niwashirodai and Miikedai line up besides Momoyamadai. The project was carried out by Osaka Prefecture: under the New Residential Town Development Act, about 1,557 hectares were built over the period from December 1965 to March 1983. The planned population is about 180,000.

A valley falling to the west and woods in the east

The elevation of the center of the location is 62.4 m. The point to the east is the highest at 74.4 m, and the point to the west drops to 47.4 m, a difference of 27 m between east and west. The north at 64.5 m and the south at 65.6 m are only about 2 m and about 3 m higher than the center. The land slopes from east to west.

The 1961-69 photograph is black and white, and a river runs up and down through the left side of the frame in large bends. The low ground on both sides of the river is filled with finely divided paddies, and several villages with clustered roofs continue along the river. Dark woods cover the right half of the frame, and narrow terraced fields tracing the contour lines are cut among them. In the upper right corner, a single wide surface with white bare earth showing is open. In the middle of the left edge, too, there is a corner where short white lines are lined up regularly.

The terminal station and the soil of March 1975

On December 7, 1973, the Semboku Rapid Railway Line was extended from Izumigaoka Station to Toga-Mikita Station, and the station opened. The new line was run by Osaka-fu Toshi Kaihatsu Co., Ltd., a third-sector company of Osaka Prefecture, and Nankai carried out the work on site under contract from that company. The town opening of Momoyamadai was in April 1972, one year and eight months before the opening of the station.

The 1974-78 photograph was taken in March 1975, one year and three months after the station opened. The scene has changed completely. A wide straight line runs diagonally from the lower left to the upper right of the frame and crosses a road running up and down slightly below the center. Woods and fields have almost disappeared, and long buildings of apartment housing line up in many rows on the whitish surface of soil. The straight line also extends from the center to the lower left, but the tracks reached Komyoike Station only in August 1977, and at the time of the photograph Toga-Mikita Station was the terminus. Dark woods are left like islands in the soil, and several pond surfaces also remain. Left of the center, the roofs of a village that appeared in the 1960s photograph remain together. In the middle of the right side, a corner where large buildings with blue roofs line up has appeared. The town opening of Harayamadai was in April 1974, the year before, and that of Niwashirodai in April 1975, a month later.

A valley where yellow paddies remained

The 1979-83 photograph was taken in November 1979. The town opening of Miikedai was in April of the same year. Bare soil remains only in the lower half and at the left edge of the frame, and the roofs of detached houses fill the surfaces of the hills as fine grains. In the middle of the left side, inside a road drawing an arc, a surface with only lot lines drawn on it spreads out, and no houses have been built there yet. The diagonal straight line continues to the lower left corner and runs out of the frame. The period of the Osaka Prefecture project ended in March 1983, a little over three years after this photograph.

The 1984-86 photograph was taken in October 1985, and houses now line the surface in the middle of the left side that had only lot lines. The valley paddies, which appear yellow, catch the eye. In the valley running up and down left of the center and in the valley in the upper right, the grid of paddies remains untouched by the land grading. Even after the tops of the hills were filled with houses, the valley floors are used as paddies, just as in the 1960s photograph.

In the FY2007 photograph, those valley paddies appear green, and the grid of paddies continuing from below the center to the bottom edge can be seen clearly. The villages along the paddies are also in the same positions as in the 1961-69 photograph. Between the houses, square open spaces the color of soil are scattered here and there in the frame. In the lower left corner, buildings with large flat roofs gather on both sides of the diagonal straight line.

A ward office placed in front of the station

In today's photograph, too, more than half of the frame is the roofs of detached houses and apartment housing. The share of built-up area around the location rose from 32% in 1976 to 58.9% in 2021. Among the roofs, the valley paddies, the woods at the foot of the hills, and ponds scattered here and there remain. The corner of blue roofs in the middle of the right side is also in the same place as in the 1975 photograph.

In Senboku New Town, district centers were placed in front of three stations, and their roles were divided. Izumigaoka takes on commerce and leisure, Komyoike commerce, business and sports facilities, and Toga administration and cultural and educational facilities. According to the plan for land use in front of the station that the City of Sakai compiled in September 2016, the Minami Ward Office, the Toga Cultural Hall and the Minami-Sakai Police Station gather in front of Toga-Mikita Station, and rental housing of the prefecture, of the prefectural public corporation and of the Urban Renaissance Agency stands in Momoyamadai and Harayamadai. Near the station there are Harayama Park, about 7.8 hectares, and Nishihara Park, about 12.7 hectares.

The population of the whole of Senboku New Town began to fall after 164,587 in 1992 and was 118,181 at the end of December 2020. In the City of Sakai's statistics by town block, at the end of September 2026, 7,023 people live in Momoyamadai and 9,226 in Harayamadai. According to the figures of Nankai, the average daily number of passengers getting on and off at Toga-Mikita Station was 16,615 in fiscal 2024. Semboku Rapid Railway was merged into Nankai Electric Railway on April 1, 2025, and the line became the Semboku Line of Nankai. The limited express Semboku Liner stops at this station.

The standard site of the official land prices (Chika Koji) is a residential site in Momoyamadai 4-cho, 967 m from the center of the location. The values are available from 2021. In the records up to the 2026 publication, the lowest price per square meter is 100,000 yen in both 2021 and 2022, and the highest is 106,000 yen in 2026. In between, 2023 was 101,000 yen, and 2024 and 2025 were 102,000 yen.