The city of Tokyo is still growing toward the entrance of Tokyo Bay. Offshore Odaiba, the construction of the landfill outside of the central breakwater is still ongoing, but this project was started in 1977 (1977) and is still in the middle of the project. This project, which Ieyasu started reclaiming land and continues, began in Tsukishima in the Meiji era. In the Edo period, soil generated during the construction of bunkers and rivers on land was discarded and reclaimed, but in the Meiji period, mud generated by dredging the seabed to reclaim land.
Tsukishima No. 1 was born by dredging and stacking underwater mud in the Miosakarai project in 1892 (1892). Next, it stretched elongated offshore to No. 2, No. 3 (current Kachidoki, Toyomi), and No. 4 (current Harumi). At the same time, this mio dred project was also the improvement of the mouth of the Sumida River. For many years, the Sumida River removed the mud brought to the seabed and improved the route.
On the river line of Tsukishima and Tsukuda Island, there were many barges such as horse-drawing boats, daruma boats, and motor boats. Goods transported by cargo ships are collected and distributed on a relatively large ship called large barge, and landed on a transshipmented small barge, transport the river line. From the Taisho era to the Showa era, there were 69 rivers flowing through Tokyo City and its surroundings, and water transportation was convenient for transportation. According to a survey by the water department at the end of 1927, the number of barges engaged in water transport was 11,290, and barge was also a workplace for each band. Its population was 31,036 (20,600 men and 10,436 women), and more than half of them were water residents who did not have a house on land. The barge, a place of work and living, was less than 50 tons at large and less than 10 tons at small. The size of the room to wake up was as small as 2-3 quires. There were three to four family members living here. In order to provide the welfare of these residents, a water hall and a water school (a boarding school built on land) were built, and a water police station in charge of security was set up. The exact number of people in Chuo-ku (= Nihonbashi-ku / Kyobashi-ku) at the time of 1927 is unknown, but the graph shows that it was about 240,000, so water residents alone accounted for more than 10%.
As of February 2018, the population of the Tsukishima district (Tsukishima, Kachidoki, Harumi) is 72,780 and the number of households is 37,443. It accounts for 46% of the population of Chuo-ku (= 157,388). It is no exaggeration to say that the population of Chuo-ku always has at the waterfront.
It seems that many water residents did not have a family register, so the actual ratio is expected to have been higher than the above figures.
In the latter half of the 1960s, cargo ships became containerships, and demand for barges in logistics decreased, resulting in a decrease in the number of barges that became integrated with work and housing, and the number of floating residents decreased dramatically due to changes in jobs. On the other hand, in many cases, abandoned barge ships were moored and used as alternatives to houses, but in the 1980s, barge became aging, and it became unbearable and almost disappeared.
