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How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

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Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#61

Post by pjc50 »

avar wrote: post #10

The 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…

Yes, but this is also the only way to preserve any kind of historic character. This decision was made for Tokyo when it was burnt down, but in lots of places preserving the status quo appearance is locally popular.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#62

Post by kaybe »

Roritharr wrote: post #13
baxtr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a German perspective: this might be one factor among many. Other factors include - land owners who wait to sell at even higher prices - drastically reduced social housing construction (Sozialer Wohnbau) - heavy influx of foreign capital (at least in major cities) reducing existing capacities - missing holistic development concepts/strategies (one big exception is probably the Bahnstadt in Heidelberg) - on aver…

What i've lately dreamed about doing is a city-building Kickstarter. You take a piece of undeveloped land in Germany, buy it for cheap and then let people & companies pledge money to build housing at building cost with the requirement that it has to be used by the owner himself, until you get enough for a 500k-1M people city. I'd love to live in a city where every inhabitant is an owner, something drastically differe…

We have small projects, such as Collegium Academicum in Heidelberg. If you want to start one yourself, the Mietshäuser Syndikat will help you with organisation and financing.

https://collegiumacademicum.de/ (German)

https://www.syndikat.org/en/

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#63

Post by dalbasal »

rb808 wrote: post #58
dalbasal wrote: post #2

I 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…

Its important to think about what the problem really is. Right now many people are moving to the big cities, and the big cities have expensive housing. To me the real problem is why people want to live in a handful of big cities instead of cheaper regions. If its true that there is no choice but to live in big cities then the current high prices really aren't a problem, its just that is where the money is. Manhattan…

I think you're right and this is an important point. We tend to be pretty parochial in our views, very influenced by our ideas about what is wrong with our local markets.

There are scarce-few examples of things gone right. That's why Tokyo is relevant. That said, Tokyo has experienced relatively little population growth, Japan has experienced none and Japan hasn't had asset inflation and/or big economic growth for a long time. One example is good, but I'd prefer to have several. Preferably one or two in real growth cities.

You are right though. We have plenty of dense-but-still-expensive examples proving that density alone does not guarantee much.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#64

Post by macspoofing »

cc81 wrote: post #55
zeth___ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>And yet there was no homelessness in the USSR. Was there no homelessness or did the state just say that? Just like there are no homosexuals in Saudi Arabia or Chechnya?

Honestly, there probably wasn't. It's not hard to 'solve' homelessness if you can forcibly send the homeless to work-camps or institutionalize them. Done and done.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#65

Post by freeflight »

kingofhdds wrote: post #44
freeflight wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 th…

Imho the GDR was just another extension of the Soviet Union, sovereign in theory only. Otherwise the "Iron Curtain" wouldn't have gone up where it did, splitting Germany in half.

Of course, the GDR also saw its fair share of cronyism with all of its injustices, like they exist everywhere, but the Plattenbauten are still held in high regard by many East-Germans.

Maybe the Soviet approach wasn't actually that catastrophic it just didn't scale that well when applied to the more populated and bigger eastern bloc states compared to the GDR? GDR wasn't that big, so not that much need to force people to move around.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#66

Post by cdavid »

masklinn wrote: post #14
mabbo wrote: post #5

The true essence of the article: > Japan has a relatively simple and unambiguous zoning code, one which the national government has repeatedly adjusted in order to allow for more housing growth in Tokyo. That has been done in the face of opposition at neighbourhood and even city level, opposition that in countries which have devolved land use decisions to a local level would be enough to stop densification or at leas…

> We need more of this in the western world. AFAIK EU zonings are not significantly (if at all) more complex than Japanese zoning, the US are the stand-out there with a constellation of byzantine exclusive zonings. I do know for certain that both french and german zoning are national/federal policy and (quite necessarily) mixed-use. So it would probably be a good thing to unfuck US zoning (good luck with that though)…

Indeed, I am a bit puzzled by the recent articles claiming Japan is housing heaven. There are a few things to keep in mind w.r.t. housing in Japan, and especially in Tokyo:

1. Buying houses is still very expensive. One of the reason it is "affordable" is because mortgages are low.

2. Housing is not a capital asset in Japan, but effectively a consumable good. As soon as you buy a house, the value get depreciated. I don't know the current numbers, but 10 years ago, the value of a house depreciated to nothing in 15 years.

3. This is one of the main reason why Japanese save so much, which has consequences on the economy.

4. The housing quality is terrible. Unless you can afford living in condos/high rise buildings/custom made houses, sound/heat isolation is non existent, amenities are not that great either. This is mostly caused by land high price: when you buy a house, 80+% of the cost is the land. Which explains 2. and 3.

IOW, I would not put too much on the cultural difference: there are fundamental reasons why buildings are not valued, which is linked to the exorbitant cost of land in cities, especially in Tokyo, because of the paucity of land in Japan. Japan has 130 millions people living in 250000 km2, 80% of which is not usable for housing. There are also a lot of regulations on the land itself: https://www.nri.com/global/opinion/papers/2008/pdf/np2008137...

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#67

Post by jdavis703 »

rb808 wrote: post #58
dalbasal wrote: post #2

I 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…

Its important to think about what the problem really is. Right now many people are moving to the big cities, and the big cities have expensive housing. To me the real problem is why people want to live in a handful of big cities instead of cheaper regions. If its true that there is no choice but to live in big cities then the current high prices really aren't a problem, its just that is where the money is. Manhattan…

Tokyo has an increasing population due to increasing urbanization, and yet as the article claims, housing demand has remained relatively stable. We can have increasing urbanization in the west too without the crazy housing prices.

Further one reason people want to live in just a few cities is because people don't want to be treated like outsiders. I know I'll probably be downvoted for saying this, but I grew up in Virginia but moved to California shortly after college. There's far less overt racism here than back home. I've also been to many rust belt cities, and can say I'm fairly certain those places are about the same as the U.S. South. For me at least, the subjective experience of racism is a reason why there are only a handful of US cities I'd live in.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#68

Post by triangleman »

mabbo wrote: post #5

The true essence of the article: > Japan has a relatively simple and unambiguous zoning code, one which the national government has repeatedly adjusted in order to allow for more housing growth in Tokyo. That has been done in the face of opposition at neighbourhood and even city level, opposition that in countries which have devolved land use decisions to a local level would be enough to stop densification or at leas…

Actually that was a footnote to the article. The true essence of the article was a statistical analysis of home building in Tokyo.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#69

Post by maxsilver »

mantas wrote: post #11
dalbasal wrote: post #2

I 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…

> 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…

> Soviet housing system...? opinions vary.

> 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 apartment.

I don't see how that's meaningfully different from current day USA.

In America, you have to save for decades to afford a down payment on the chance to potentially land an apartment. But, if you enlist in the military or move to bumfuck nowhere, you can bypass that problem. And if you are willing to start climbing the ladder at a well-connected company, they will pay you enough to afford an apartment right away.

Sure, we swapped "government" for "corporation". But to a regular person, it's a pretty similar situation.

> If a city can't take in people - they're not sent in.. On top of that, many people were stuck in Kolchoz without any prospect of moving to a city. Thus were was no pressure to the system

As opposed to today in the US, where if a city can't take in people, they get people anyway, and they huddle under an overpass or setup a tent camp in a park somewhere. Pressure in the system is only useful if people react to it, and in America no one reacts to that pressure in any useful way. (to the extreme that it became national headline news when Utah decided to actually try to build housing for people who needed it - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/04...).

---

I'm not arguing that the Soviet system was good. But American housing has become so bad that it's understandable that for some, Soviet housing is starting to look appealing in comparison.

Re: How Tokyo built its way to abundant housing

#70

Post by Retric »

macspoofing wrote: post #23
dalbasal wrote: post #2

I 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…

> Why should housing not be to governed by market forces?

The limit is transportation/infrastructure. not buildings. You need NYC's roads, schools, and subway etc before block after block of 40+ floor building are viable. It'a very much a tragedy of the commons situation as a single high rise is fine but 100 of them are not.

Unfortunately, most areas are regulated at the local level which while better than a free for all creates massive problems.

I would posit that the best solution is state level control + an infrastructure tax on new development. Charging ~30k per SFH might seem to make things more expensive but by allowing new entry to pay their own way let market forces work while adjusting for externalities.

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