My experience with these buildings in Japan is that many of the residents are either extremely low income or extremely thrifty senior citizens, or young single

My experience with these buildings in Japan is that many of the residents are either extremely low income or extremely thrifty senior citizens, or young single people away from their family unit and unable to afford more than a room for a few man yen per month--with a heavy bias toward the seniors. They have the benefit of Japan's excellent public safety network, such as local police boxes (koban) and lots of watchful eyes everywhere. There are very, very rarely going to be groups of idle men hanging around in public spaces during the day. No drug business or other illicit street activity is tolerated--it would simply stick out like a sore thumb and be handled with extreme prejudice. (Whether that's a good thing in itself is another topic for debate.) Anyway, it gives enough breathing room for the residents, many of whom are quite poor and infirm, to stay busy cleaning the grounds and keeping an eye on each other. The maintenance staff is usually one or two guys who may bring in help for landscaping or big jobs, but are usually just doing rounds and odd jobs. It is remarkable how much it operates as a self-contained unit with very meager resources and without much help from the outside. My direct experience was local (Nagoya) but it looks quite consistent in other places, at least from the outside looking in. Maybe others have a different view from places like Tokyo or Osaka.