Tsunashima (Former Electrical Equipment Factory) about 60 years ago and today

History of Tsunashima (Former Electrical Equipment Factory)

Tsunashima lies on the north bank of a section where the Tsurumi River winds widely through the plain. The Tokyu Toyoko Line runs diagonally from northeast to southwest and crosses the river a little south of the station. The frame of this location puts at its center a belt of rice paddies shifted east of the station, and above the center, just east of the tracks, it takes in the site that a Panasonic factory occupied. In 2018 a town that brings together housing, commercial facilities and a base for technology development opened on that former site. It is about a 12-minute walk from Tsunashima Station. The aerial photographs lined up from the oldest show, overlapping in the same frame, the flow of strip-shaped paddies being filled by rows of houses, and the way a section of large roofs is cut off from that flow and keeps remaining.

Rice paddies on the north bank of the Tsurumi River

In the 1945-50 photograph, almost the whole center of the frame is rice paddies. Paddies divided into long, narrow strips by paddy ridges line up facing the same way, and strips of different colors are mixed in here and there. The Tsurumi River flows east-west across the lower part of the center, and the levees on both banks run side by side as two white lines. The river changes direction toward the right of the frame, draws a large arc to the northeast and leaves at the upper right. On the west side of the tracks rows of houses gather, and right beside them a low hill covered with trees rises black. The rows of houses fit within a narrow area squeezed between the hill, the tracks and the river, and hardly spill east of the tracks. A corner a little east of the center, where several rows of white, long, narrow buildings line up, is about the only thing that stands out. The tracks are the Kanagawa Line of the Tokyo Yokohama Electric Railway, which opened in 1926, and they appear as one straight line cutting diagonally through the grid of paddies. The direction of the ridges is aligned without regard to the tracks, and from the mismatch of angles you can read that the paddies came first and the tracks later passed over them.

On the flat land inside the levees, as far as the photograph shows, there is no relief worth the name. It is a plain made of sediment the river carried, and because water was easy to draw, it was land suited to rice paddies. The flood hazard map that the City of Yokohama publishes shows how far water spreads in heavy rain on the low flat land along the river.

The factory built east of the tracks

Just east of the tracks, above the center of the frame, a mass of white, flat, large roofs appears from the 1961-69 photograph on. In the 1945-50 photograph the same place had only strips of paddies. The roof is a shape combining rectangles, and a single roof is wide enough to cover several rows' worth of the roofs of the surrounding houses. Although there are still many paddies in the center, houses begin to be built here and there along the roads, and west of the tracks rows of houses spread in a grid. In the upper left of the frame, a corner can also be seen where long, narrow buildings facing the same way line up regularly in many rows.

The south bank of the river follows the same course, a little later. The south bank in 1945-50 is paddies all over, and only one straight road passes east-west through the paddies, bending south at a right angle partway. In 1961-69 a building with a white, long roof is built near that road, and in the lower right of the frame a lot appears where small buildings of the same shape line up in order. At the bottom edge of the frame, hills covered with woods continue as a band, and you can see that the river plain ends there. The south bank in 1974-78 is filled with large and small roofs a step ahead of the center of the north bank.

In the 1974-78 photograph, most of the paddies in the center of the frame are filled with houses and small buildings. Dark green fields remaining small around the center are about all that can be called a remnant of the former paddies. The factory site has the form of many white, long roofs lined up, and because the surroundings are packed with houses, its outline has become all the sharper. The Tsurumi River shows a greenish water surface, and the riverbed land inside the levees continues as a thin band on both banks.

In 1979-83 the river is muddy brown, and a sandbar floats white on the inside of the bend. Just south of the center of the frame one large white roof is added, and buildings with flat roofs increase between the houses. In 1984-86 and 1987-90 houses with blue roofs come to stand out, and the green of the fields almost disappears from the center. In every era from 1961-69, only the section of large roofs east of the tracks hardly changes its shape, and remains among the rows of houses as one large section in one piece.

The town opening on the former site of the works

In March 2016 Panasonic announced, together with participating companies and universities, the concept for a town to be developed on the former site of these works. In November of the same year construction of all the facilities began, and in March 2017 a hydrogen station opened first. With the town opening on March 26, 2018, apartment buildings, commercial facilities, an international student dormitory of Keio University, an energy center that shares electricity and heat among the facilities, and facilities for technology development were all in place. The site is about 37,900 square meters. The town's name carries "Sustainable Smart Town", and it sets targets across the whole town for reducing carbon dioxide emissions and water use.

Today, large white square roofs and rows of tall buildings line up in the section east of the tracks. The boundary line traces the shape of the site from the factory era, and the contrast with the fine rows of houses around it is the same as in the 1961-69 photograph. You can read that even though the contents were replaced, the outer shape of the section remained. The riverbed land of the Tsurumi River has become a green band, and on the river southeast down from the center, a thin straight line crossing the river diagonally is added only in today's photograph. The tree-covered hill west of the tracks remains with its position and shape almost unchanged since 1945-50. The tracks too cross the frame at the same angle as in 1945-50, and the place where they cross the river has not moved.

In March 2023 the Tokyu Shin-yokohama Line opened, and Shin-tsunashima Station was built near Tsunashima Station. Because the station is underground, it does not appear in the aerial photographs. The price of residential land in Tsunashima-higashi 1-chome, near the station, was highest in the official land prices (Chika Koji) up to 2026 at 575,000 yen per square meter in 1988, and lowest at 268,000 yen in both 2006 and 2012. After falling to less than half of the 1988 value, it has been regaining value little by little.