It was only 20 years ago that Tokyo was famous for having the most expensive, unaffordable housing in the world. Since then it has had a 20 year economic depression. Maybe Tokyo's population has risen (I'm a bit surprised at that) but it also has near-zero foreign immigration. I'm a bit surprised those things aren't mentioned in the article, but it really doesn't prove Tokyo is a great way to run things.
How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
41–50 of 114 posts
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#42I think it's worth occasionally thinking of the "economy" in simple terms, especially for the wider middle class. There are relatively few broad categories that make up most of our economic lives. For most people the "economy" mostly consists of (0) their job/income (1) food/consumable (2) stuff/durables (3) transport (4) vital services: health, education, etc. (5) housing. 1 & 2 are well served by free markets, and…
>Housing is in many places (mostly successful cities) the economic disaster. Fully exposed to financialization, business cycles, inflation prone. Rather than signalling to supply, prices adjust to whatever the median person can afford to pay Why should housing not be to governed by market forces? Housing shortages are due to regulations, from limiting new development outright, to limiting high density buildings, to h…
while definitely pre-fabricated building were grey and ugly, they still look better than British council houses in London; especially after many of them, for example in Warsaw, got renovated, insulated, covered with plaster and colourfully painted.
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
This something only a government could really do. Housing is nowhere near a free market. Public decisions control what can be built/rebuilt & where, essentially dictating "supply". It's also public infrastructure, services and wider economic policies that determine the value of that supply to consumers. A quasi-laissez faire housing market can work. The US has many of them, in the geographically unrestricted cities l…
In that case, wouldn't the reasonable response to desire for higher density be, you know, demolishing single units to build high density housing? Often, that isn't possible due to zoning in these 'unrestricted' cities. Zoning tends to be really restrictive, up to the point of placing tight limits on the density of dwellings.
No zoning in Houston..
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Soviet housing system...? opinions vary. Opinions vary for those who were exposed to privileged side only. In reality, most people had to wait decades for an apartment. There was an easy way to get an apartment though - get sent to bumfuck nowhere for infrastructure project (military base or factory, nuclear plant etc..). Or climb up the party ladder or get a job at well-connected company than get arrange you an ap…
> Opinions vary for those who were exposed to privileged side only. That's completely opposite to my experience in the GDR. Neither my aunt nor my grandparents had to wait "decades" to move into their Plattenbau apartments and I can assure you neither of them had been on the "privileged side", their Stasi files make that pretty clear. For my grandparents it was a giant step up in terms of living conditions, previousl…
The starting comment in the thread explicitly mentions "Soviet". I cannot say much about GDR, but as for USSR, Mantas is right. Soviets controlled 100% of employment options, and restricted movements of citizens - and that was their approach to urban planning. Which in the end didn't work well anyway, as my parents waited for an apartment for more then 20 years, and finally USSR collapsed before it happened :-) By the way, I guess GDR was not that different in the idea, it's just that lesser territory, and population made the approach less catastrophic.
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#45The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. The interests of prospective buyers and market incumbents are at polar opposites. Byers want cheap housing, but existing owners want their property value to rise. Since those living in the area get to vote the natural outcome is stagnation. Japan is somewhat getting around this for two reasons. Na…
> The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. Don't assume US insanity has sway everywhere else. Continental EU zoning models are similar to Japan's, Germany and France zoning are national/federal policies and non-exclusive zoning.
At least in Germany, there are strict rules about where you can build and how. You cannot just buy any farmland and start building. As a consequence, ground prices skyrocket in regions of demand and there isn't enough new construction to put the forces of a free market into effect. Even appartments in multi-storey buidings are usually far to expensive.
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The reason housing is such an issue in the richest parts of the world is because zoning policy is set at the local level. Don't assume US insanity has sway everywhere else. Continental EU zoning models are similar to Japan's, Germany and France zoning are national/federal policies and non-exclusive zoning.
Something gets lost in translation when we only talk about whether zoning laws are national or not, but no, this insanity is very much the case in the EU as well, and it's even worse in some cases. Here's an article about how Paris only recently lifted height restrictions (and then in only some areas of the city): http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2010/11/17/feu-vert-po... Does that mean Paris has different zonin…
On the other hand Paris proper (where those height restrictions apply) is already one of the densest cities in the world, along with some of its suburban cities [0].
I think around these parts there are two separate problems:
- foreign/1%er investors buying up property and leaving it empty. Across central Paris ~20-30% (depending on districts) of homes are empty [1].
- The city is geographically too small, being locked inside the area of its mid-19th century fortifications, replaced in the 70s by an urban highway. This makes most of the land (and homes) outside of this circular highway much less desirable and therefore a lot less dense. If the suburbs were built as densely as Paris proper, most of the people living in the metro area would be able to live in a space a tenth of the size, avoiding so much commute misery.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_d...
[1] https://www.terraeco.net/A-Paris-toujours-plus-de-logements,...
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#47I think it's worth occasionally thinking of the "economy" in simple terms, especially for the wider middle class. There are relatively few broad categories that make up most of our economic lives. For most people the "economy" mostly consists of (0) their job/income (1) food/consumable (2) stuff/durables (3) transport (4) vital services: health, education, etc. (5) housing. 1 & 2 are well served by free markets, and…
>Housing is in many places (mostly successful cities) the economic disaster. Fully exposed to financialization, business cycles, inflation prone. Rather than signalling to supply, prices adjust to whatever the median person can afford to pay Why should housing not be to governed by market forces? Housing shortages are due to regulations, from limiting new development outright, to limiting high density buildings, to h…
>Soviet housing never worked. More to the point the wait lists for apartments was measured in years (ripe for corruption). The buildings were shoddy and depressing (hope you like grey). Urban planning was haphazard and may or not may have corresponded to where people actually wanted to live.
And yet there was no homelessness in the USSR.
If that's a system that doesn't work, sign me up for two.
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case, wouldn't the reasonable response to desire for higher density be, you know, demolishing single units to build high density housing? Often, that isn't possible due to zoning in these 'unrestricted' cities. Zoning tends to be really restrictive, up to the point of placing tight limits on the density of dwellings.
No zoning in Houston..
Why keep building where you get flooded all the time? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/why-c...
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Housing is in many places (mostly successful cities) the economic disaster. Fully exposed to financialization, business cycles, inflation prone. Rather than signalling to supply, prices adjust to whatever the median person can afford to pay Why should housing not be to governed by market forces? Housing shortages are due to regulations, from limiting new development outright, to limiting high density buildings, to h…
>Soviet housing never worked. More to the point the wait lists for apartments was measured in years (ripe for corruption). The buildings were shoddy and depressing (hope you like grey). Urban planning was haphazard and may or not may have corresponded to where people actually wanted to live. And yet there was no homelessness in the USSR. If that's a system that doesn't work, sign me up for two.
Wasn’t the lack of homelessness and unemployment because both of those were designated as a crime and so you got sent of to a work camp?
Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Housing is in many places (mostly successful cities) the economic disaster. Fully exposed to financialization, business cycles, inflation prone. Rather than signalling to supply, prices adjust to whatever the median person can afford to pay Why should housing not be to governed by market forces? Housing shortages are due to regulations, from limiting new development outright, to limiting high density buildings, to h…
>Soviet housing never worked. More to the point the wait lists for apartments was measured in years (ripe for corruption). The buildings were shoddy and depressing (hope you like grey). Urban planning was haphazard and may or not may have corresponded to where people actually wanted to live. And yet there was no homelessness in the USSR. If that's a system that doesn't work, sign me up for two.
You'd be surprised at how humans "make a plan" when it comes to those things, as long as family/community is not broken. Either way, there probably was some homelessness, but we'd have to look at actual records/stats on it.
But the USSR was just one system of social housing. Have a look at what's happening right now in South Africa with what they call RDP housing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_and_Development...
Sounds good on paper. However it has so many problems:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2017-03-16-gover...
http://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/cracks-exposed-in-rdp-hous...
http://www.cplo.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BP-432-RDP...