Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
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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
#2This is a follow up article to a lot of questions on this thread: How Tokyo Avoided the Affordable Housing Crisis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32894963
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#3The 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.
> Even more striking is that more people in Tokyo live in detached houses compared to apartments (30%) than in New York (16.3%) and Paris (12.3%).
I'm pretty sure this "striking" fact is an artifact of including a whole lotta suburbs, exurbs and farms in the Tokyo stats. Very few people live in detached houses within the 23-ku.
TL;DR: Housing in greater Tokyo is indeed affordable, but as anyone who's seen a "one-room mansion" (read: tiny studio) can attest, it's rarely spacious.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#4Better than New York, Paris and London is a low bar
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#5Paris, 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 country.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#6The 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. >…
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.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#7Paris, 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…
I have to agree and disagree :)
First, it's not clean, it's just different way of unclean and only during certain periods of the day. But during too many hours of the day in popular areas it's normal to see literal piles of trash on the street covered in rats, and in the morning with crows.
On the other hand, there's no littering, virtually no homelessness (nor their encampments, etc) and finally no cars on the street, which makes the city look a lot cleaner.
"Nobody in Tokyo cares about what their house looks like from the outside" => completely agree, my pet peeve here is that one of the best towns geographically speaking of Japan is probably the ugliest town I've seen in my life in a 1st world country (Kawaguchiko, with the beautiful lake, lush forest and Fuji San nearby).
"never seen more miserable public parks" again have to agree, the median local park is taken out of a horror movie. Though there are* a bunch of very, very beautiful ones!
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#8Offtopic, but
> the tallest building in Tokyo is only 255 meters
There is a hotel in this tower (called Andaz) and it has a proper swimming pool on the 37th floor. Quite an jaw-dropping experience on its own, but doubly so during an earthquake.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#9The 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. >…
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
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#10The 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. >…
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.
Not fair comparison, Okutama is literally in the middle of a mountain range with no much around, but you can get there combining a bunch of express trains in a very straightforward combination, which seems pretty hand-picked. Hicksville to NYC is 56km by car. Okutama from Tokyo Station is 96km.