Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
theguardian.com
Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
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Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#2So 500 die alone every year, let's give this number some perspective. Tokyo's population is 9.273 million, the highest of any city in the world, of which some 23% or roughly 2.1 million are aged 65 or over, and 500 of these are dying alone every year? So 0.005% of the general population or 0.023% of the elderly.
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#3The future of NA suburbs as well.
Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore.
I guess one can hope that autonomous cars will finally appear to bail one out of this predicament, but I'll personally be setting myself up to retire in a place where everything I need is a short walk or wheelchair roll away.
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#4The future of NA suburbs as well. Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore. I guess one can hope that autonomous cars will finally appear to bail one out of this predicament, but I'll personally be setting myself up to retire in a place where everything I need is a short walk or wheelchair roll away.
> Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore.
You're describing Florida and they drive anyways.
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#5The future of NA suburbs as well. Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore. I guess one can hope that autonomous cars will finally appear to bail one out of this predicament, but I'll personally be setting myself up to retire in a place where everything I need is a short walk or wheelchair roll away.
> Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore. You're describing Florida and they drive anyways.
They drive golf carts*
I've been to a couple golf cart communities in Florida and they are actually pretty cool for retirement
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#6Really interesting article.
> ... it also set strict requirements for younger people who lived there: if your income exceeded a certain threshold, you would be evicted. If you refused, you were charged rent – at potentially up to twice the market rate, depending on your income.
The goal was to make public housing a safety net for elderly, low-income and socially vulnerable people. The effect, however, has been to make social housing off-limits for most people: eligibility fell from 80% of households in 1951 to 25% after 1996.
And it has turned public housing into a kind of ghetto for poor and elderly people who rely on pensions and can’t afford private rents.
In Canada it is often controversial when upper middle class people are found to be living in affordable coops and anti-poverty activists, in an understandable effort to create as much low income housing as possible, often call for wholly low income housing projects instead of having buildings with mixed incomes. This article suggests at the flawed outcome from overly means testing benefits.
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#7The future of NA suburbs as well. Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore. I guess one can hope that autonomous cars will finally appear to bail one out of this predicament, but I'll personally be setting myself up to retire in a place where everything I need is a short walk or wheelchair roll away.
> Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not legally allowed to drive anymore. You're describing Florida and they drive anyways.
You say that like we take away people's drivers licenses if they're not capable of driving safely
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#8So 500 die alone every year, let's give this number some perspective. Tokyo's population is 9.273 million, the highest of any city in the world, of which some 23% or roughly 2.1 million are aged 65 or over, and 500 of these are dying alone every year? So 0.005% of the general population or 0.023% of the elderly.
Tokyo Metropolis, which Tama Ward falls under, has roughly 14 million people. Greater Tokyo has 39 million.
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#9Several of the examples in the article hinted at familial estrangement, which makes things much worse.
I lived in Taiwan, which also has a stagnant birth rate (only 181,606 births last year, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3611847) and a decades-long trend for young people to migrate to the large cities, or go to China to try their fortunes there.
But there is also a strong tradition of multi-generational households and traditions/holidays that emphasize family relations or filial piety, Lunar New Year being the most obvious. Certainly, family strife exists (and can be exacerbated if people are forced to live together) and many seniors live alone, but I think because of the cultural emphasis on familial contact, there is also a level of contact and awareness that can mitigate the extreme situations described in the article. Being smaller also helps (most cities on the island are no more than two or three hours away by high-speed rail).
In recent decades, there has also been a trend to legally allow foreign caregivers (mostly Filipinos and Indonesians) for people aged 85 and up, and tacitly allow for foreign caregivers for younger seniors and wealthy families. I am not sure how Taiwan's national health system covers those costs, or if the elderly poor can afford them.
Does Japan have any similar system of allowing foreign caregivers?
Re: Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old
#10Really interesting article. > ... it also set strict requirements for younger people who lived there: if your income exceeded a certain threshold, you would be evicted. If you refused, you were charged rent – at potentially up to twice the market rate, depending on your income. The goal was to make public housing a safety net for elderly, low-income and socially vulnerable people. The effect, however, has been to mak…
I increasingly think that for social safety nets to work well, they need to be universalized, if possible.
Otherwise we get welfare traps, ghettoisation or just poor quality (like buses in places where only the poor use em). It doesn't mean everyone has to use it, just that they can. This is common sense in services like health or education, where we're used to it.