Industrial Development of Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture

Abstract

Ishinomaki city is situated at the mouth of the Kitakami river, and is one of the industrial cities in Tohoku. It has 11, 496 workers engaged in manufacturing and about 375 billion yen of industrial output in 1967. The industry made a remarkable progress since a pulp factory started in 1940. The process of the industrial development of the city is classified into four stages;
1) Germing stage: 1870-1930 The industry was characterized with simple processing of marine products such as fish-cake and dried bonito. In the last quarter of the stage, the development of Ishinomaki as a fishing port gave an impetus to the development of industries related to fishery, and new plants of ice-making, refrigeration of fish, and ship- building started their operation.
2) Growing stage: 1930-1945 Ice-making, freezing of fish and ship-building continued to develop, and many plants were built in the riverside area of the Kitakami river. A larger pulp factory was newly established to the west of the city, beyond the Hiyoriyama- Hill. However, since 1935 all of them were converted into munition factories.
3) Establishing stage: 1945-1962 After the restoration to the pre-war standard, Ishinomaki experienced a rapid progress in food stuff industry and pulp industry, which composed two main parts of the industry. But the food stuff industry has been changed in the contents and structure: the decrease of the weight of simple processing typical of domestic industry made a sharp contrast with the development of ice-making, freezing of fish and canning operated by modern large factories. Also, ship-building, machinery and metal industry made progress.
4) The stage of secondary take-off : Since 1962 Based on the new development project of Ishinomaki city as a part of the Sendai Bay Region which is one of the New Industrial Cities, the construction of a new industrial port was started to the west of the built-up area, and keeping step with its progress about 30 new factories including lumber industry, food processing, chemical industry and compound-feed-making for poultry and live-stock, ship-building and machinery have been located at the industrial estates near the port. Thus, the composition of manufacturing industry in the city tends to diversify. Also, owing to the establishment of the new industrial estates, separated from the old industrial area near the riverside of the Kitakami river the distribution of industrial works is differentiating into two main industrial areas. These phenomena are similar to those in other industrial cities with new industrial ports, e. g., Hachinohe, Akita, Sakata and Niigata, and may offer a subject for the study of urban structure.