Aichi
From silk-town Koromo to Toyota City: Aichi's 1938 bet on one factory created Japan's manufacturing heartland, now testing whether ICE-era ecosystems can survive EV transition.
Aichi exists because silk died. When the Great Depression crushed global demand for Japanese silk in the 1930s, the town of Koromo faced extinction. Mayor Nakamura Juichi made a desperate bet: he lobbied a young industrialist named Toyoda Kiichiro to build his experimental automobile factory there. In 1938, the Koromo factory opened. By 1959, the town had renamed itself Toyota—the first time in modern history a Japanese city took a corporation's name.
That single factory nucleated an industrial ecosystem without parallel. Today, 17 Toyota plants and over 200 tier-one suppliers cluster within a two-hour radius, creating what biologists would recognize as a coral reef: the keystone species (Toyota) creates structure that enables thousands of specialist organisms to thrive. Aichi's manufacturing output has led Japan continuously since 1977. The prefecture produces 40% of Japan's transportation equipment and 50% of its aerospace components—Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki, and Subaru all manufacture here.
The numbers reveal the ecosystem's health: Aichi runs a ¥10.2 trillion trade surplus while Japan overall posts deficits. Unemployment for 25-34 year-olds runs at 2.4%, half Tokyo's rate. But the keystone species faces evolutionary pressure: US tariffs, EV transition, and China's rise. In 2024, Station Ai—Japan's largest startup incubator—opened in Nagoya, signaling Toyota's recognition that the next transformation may not come from within. By 2026, Aichi's bet will be tested again: can an ecosystem built around internal combustion adapt to electrification, or does every coral reef eventually bleach?