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Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

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Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#61

Post by GuB-42 »

franciscop wrote: post #44
cannam wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about NY or Paris, but the comparison against London seems fair enough. They seem to be using a Tokyo metropolitan area of about 2000 km^2, and comparing it with Greater London at 1572 km^2. And indeed, people throughout Greater London are entirely used to living in small, damp, shared boxes.

The geography of the "cities" is very different though (look at the density of population maps provided), where "Tokyo Metropolitan" is one third pure mountains, then one third low-density living (think L.A.) and then one third what people normally thinks of the city of Tokyo, all of these in a sausage-like shape, while "Greater London" grows in a circle and so it's a circle-ish area. See this image with the labels,…

And even for the "green" area, a good part of it is not that dense. I mean, it is still packed, but most of it is made of small 2 story houses rather than large apartment complexes and high rise buildings.

The real dense part that looks like the pictures of Tokyo you have most likely seen is around the Yamanote line, a train line that circles an area that is about 1/10 of the green area.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#62

Post by ouid »

franciscop wrote: post #44
cannam wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about NY or Paris, but the comparison against London seems fair enough. They seem to be using a Tokyo metropolitan area of about 2000 km^2, and comparing it with Greater London at 1572 km^2. And indeed, people throughout Greater London are entirely used to living in small, damp, shared boxes.

The geography of the "cities" is very different though (look at the density of population maps provided), where "Tokyo Metropolitan" is one third pure mountains, then one third low-density living (think L.A.) and then one third what people normally thinks of the city of Tokyo, all of these in a sausage-like shape, while "Greater London" grows in a circle and so it's a circle-ish area. See this image with the labels,…

If you want to take a more principled approach to size here, you should use a metric that corresponds to how humans interact with the region. Pick a point to call the center and find all the points with a round trip time less than some number.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#63

Post by athenot »

yrgulation wrote: post #58

I dont know how accurate this report is, but i do wish western europe was as well organised and clean as japan. Many, if not all, west european capitals are a mess with poor living conditions with no signs of improvement.

Purely as a visitor, Zürich definitely felt cleaner and better organized than other cities in western Europe.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#64

Post by bombcar »

oneoff786 wrote: post #9
diziet wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okutama, Tokyo is part of "Tokyo Metropolis". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okutama,_Tokyo . The furthest I've been is Hachioji, which was about 1 hour by train from 23-ku. Hachioji is roughly half as far as Okutama. In New York City terms, getting to Hicksville, NY takes about 1 hour by train. For Bay Area folks, both Dublin / Pleasanton and Bay Point / Pittsburg ... or even Antioch are about an hour away by BART.

Is 1 hour by train a reasonable metric to use given the differences in trains

1 hour is a fair measure in my opinion, the average commute time is about 30 minutes in the US:

> In 2019, the average one-way commute in the United States increased to a new high of 27.6 minutes [27.6]

Which would mean the reasonable "maximum" is going to be about an hour one-way. Some will commute further but it'll drop off very fast. You can actually see it in action if you graph house prices on a map around an urban area; once you are outside commuting distance from the center prices start going down. People will still commute to the edges of the metro, but the numbers who want to decreases.

And a train can create "pockets" further away by mileage.

[27.6] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#65

Post by bombcar »

newaccount74 wrote: post #57

I think measuring per person is pretty misleading. A single person living in a 25m^2 appartment would be quite cramped. A family with two young kids living in 100m^2 is pretty spacious. So if you look at living space per person, then societies with smaller household sizes will appear to have more living space per person. so if you measure that, you also have to compare how many people are in households as well.

Yeah, a more accurate measurement would be "baseline + X" - you don't really need to go above the average household size, but you can fit people in way denser than 25m^2 (270 sq ft) if they share common areas. The average dorm room is 230 sq ft (with a roommate!) but the dorm provides common areas and other amenities.

Another thing to consider when comparing countries is what is considered "living space" and what is not - some areas have large porches that are not considered "living space" even though they serve similar functions to what a living room might in other parts of the world.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#66

Post by aikinai »

pezezin wrote: post #60
rgmerk wrote: post #5

Paris, London and New York - the key points of comparison - aren’t exactly known for their spacious housing. One other point that many of the Tokyo fans don’t acknowledge is how extraordinarily ugly the place is. Sure, it’s clean (more than you can say for New York) but clearly nobody in Tokyo cares about what their house looks like from the outside. And I’ve never seen more miserable public parks in a developed coun…

Not just Tokyo, but the whole of Japan. I live in Aomori, I have traveled quite a bit around the country, and I haven't seen yet a single city that wasn't extremely ugly. I have asked many Japanese people, and they just don't care.

I live in and love Japan, and after many years have also gotten used to the general ugliness and just enjoy the beautiful parts when I can, but turning off the Japanese filter I’ve developed, good god this is so true.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#67

Post by bombcar »

franciscop wrote: post #45
marak830 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be more attributed to the multiple day trash picking depending on which type, though right? I mean Tuesday: burnable waste, wed cardboard, Thurs clothes and Fri other, will tend to have trash in the designated areas, on each of those days. Edit:spelling (Note:days and trash types differ a lot per area, but it's a good generalisation based off of my location).

That's one thing for sure, but I attribute it most to the lack of dumpsters. I am not sure why they were banned, the trash cans supposedly because of terrorism, but the larger containers/dumpsters would make the city so much cleaner and better. Tip: when there's a typhoon, restaurants close and there's no trash on the street, the rats invade nearby shops looking desperately for food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B…

To be fair to Tokyo I doubt there's a major city in the world that doesn't have rats unless rats can't live in a super hot desert or frozen tundra.

It's a matter of how contained/controlled/visible they are.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#69

Post by JTBooth »

newaccount74 wrote: post #57

I think measuring per person is pretty misleading. A single person living in a 25m^2 appartment would be quite cramped. A family with two young kids living in 100m^2 is pretty spacious. So if you look at living space per person, then societies with smaller household sizes will appear to have more living space per person. so if you measure that, you also have to compare how many people are in households as well.

Agree - I moved from 40m2 alone to 60m2 with my wife, and the experience is much better. We still have one sink, one toilet, one bathtub, one washing machine. Her space takes up maybe 10m2. The free walking-around space probably went from 5m2 to 25m2.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#70

Post by vladvasiliu »

rippercushions wrote: post #3

The article makes a major mistake: it uses Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to, basically "Tokyo State", area 2,194.07 km2) for comparisons, not central Tokyo (23-ku, aka the former Tokyo City, area 619 km2). So it's basically the same as saying houses in New York are much larger than those in Paris, because you're comparing all of New York State including housing in Buffalo etc with the 20 arrondissements of central Paris. >…

I don't have numbers, but I doubt that 12.3% of people living in Paris proper (the 20 arrondissements) live in detached houses. Yes, there are villas in the city, but they're extremely rare. I don't see them housing more than 1 in 10 people.

So their numbers seem indeed dubious.

Edit: I found official stats (French only): https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2011101?geo=DEP-75#chif... Table "LOG T2". "maisons" = "house", "appartements" = "apartments"

In 2019, less than 1% of housing stock were "houses".

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