Isn't it prohibitively hard to reside in Japan as an outsider? How can they expect to move up to 8mm houses unless predominantly to existing Japanese? Am I missing something?
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Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
131–140 of 410 posts
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#132In Detroit some people - actually, Bill Pulte - are razing dwellings with an eye on redevelopment.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
i don't know why this is being downvoted. the core idea is a good one. Start moving people away from expensive areas and have them populate areas like the rust belt where housing is much cheaper. Detroit is pretty cost effective as others have mentioned.
Rust belt and Detroit get cold in the winter. Homeless people gravitate to places that will not kill them in their sleep. The climate (temperate/weather, government, and population) are what draw homeless to specific areas.
The parent is implying you'd buy them the property, not just move them and still have them sleep outside.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#134Isn't it prohibitively hard to reside in Japan as an outsider? How can they expect to move up to 8mm houses unless predominantly to existing Japanese? Am I missing something?
Well I'm east Asian so I wont stick out like a white person. But no, you wont have any hard time. Whether you will be accepted as Japanese is another story.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Insane, every 22 years house goes to zero value. Probably adding relatively little money can extend the life to 40-50 or so. If I'm 30 and buy a house, makes no sense to need to tear it down when I'm 52.
How often to people these days plan to be in the same house they bought at 30, when they are 50? How many actually do?
FWIW, I bought my first house at 27, with a wife and child, and lived there for 13 years. Child grew up and moved out. Sold the single-family, bought a smaller TH, and assuming nothing major changes, we'll be here until we retire or beyond (I'm now 41, so ~25 years from now).
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#136The US saw similar efforts in Detroit and other Rust Belt cities. That mostly just resulted in asset flippers hoarding houses and letting them fall into further disrepair. I wonder what steps Japan is taking to mitigate that possibility.
As an object level fact, Japan has a homogeneous culture centered around honor, which is much different from Detroit.
Where the culture is all centered around respect.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. That's generally true though it depends on the specifics e.g. they would renovate and maintain things like temples, ryokan or major multi-generational homes. It's the "personal" homes which are considered disposable (pretty much anything you'd have in a suburbs in the US for instance).
US is becoming more like that over time too, if you look at a lot of the new builds in subdivisions it's hard to imagine them lasting that long. I wonder if at some point the cultural attitude to "old houses" will become more like Japan's. [edit]: I find the downvotes curious - I know plenty of people living in ~120 year old houses, and plenty living in 5-15 year old new builds in subdivisions. None of us can really…
You're right, a lot of new construction is trash. To maximize margins they use the lowest quality / cheapest materials allowed under code.
Houses are turning into Ikea furniture.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only a property in Detroit in the deserted areas could mean frequent meetings with muggings, violence, etc. In Japan it will just be a regular house.
I have lived in crappy neighborhoods[1][2]. Violence is not likely to be an issue as long as you don't inject yourselves into your neighbors' business it's really not the big deal the upper classes make it out to be with all their hand wringing. Violent crime doesn't really happen that often per capita (i.e. odds are it will never happen to you). Not getting involved with drugs is like 90% of the battle. If you do ge…
> i.e. odds are it will never happen to you
In the reality of the situation, odds are that it will eventually happen to you.
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you could pull that off, sounds like an incredible program to me. I don't think anything could revitalize Detroit like large amounts of immigrants would.
And Detroit already has a large immigrant population, so it's not that much of a culture shock.
From Wikipedia looks like they are below the national average, but I'd posit that means the upside is that much larger.
My favorite example of this process is booming South Florida, where more than half of adults are foreign born. Houston is another great one, with 23% foreign born.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Metro_Detroit#... > 5% of people within the city of Detroit are immigrants, making the percentage of immigrants in Detroit the lowest such percentage out of those of the 25 largest cities in the United States. The national average is about 13%
Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses
#140> If this continues, at some point it may be necessary to consider limiting new construction. But that would have a substantial impact on the economy.
Lots of housing no one wants, but, we still need to keep building other housing that people do want.
Reminds me of the US labor market. Lots of people companies don't want to hire so we gotta bring in other people that companies do want to hire.
But, what should the US do with those unwanted people?