in 2014 Tokyo built 140,000 homes This isn't a net gain of 140k homes, but instead 140k "housing starts". In the US this would translate into about 140k new h

in 2014 Tokyo built 140,000 homes This isn't a net gain of 140k homes, but instead 140k "housing starts". In the US this would translate into about 140k new homes, because we normally reuse houses, but in Japan the culture is generally when you buy a house you tear it down and build a new one. So this 140k is a mixture of building new units and replacing old ones.