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Downsized dwellings: Inside Tokyo's tiny living spaces

162 points by oska 8y ago

rovyko 8y ago
There's a good video from Living in a Big Tiny House covering one of these tiny Japanese apartments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg
- oska 8y ago
  That is a good video. Accent test for North Americans: See if you can say which person is the New Zealander and which is the Australian (before the 12 minute mark after which one of them says where they're from).
- IkmoIkmo 8y ago
  Hah, the go-to video for everyone to start with! Did anyone else think they'd make a good couple? Anyway, I wish we'd finally agree as a community to use one word for one thing, but not the other. i.e., small homes: just small homes (like OP's link, serious and important approach to housing). tiny houses: the new trend of putting a small home on wheels/trailer. (like 99% of the links on Google). I'm all for the former (small units, when fit with modern-appliances, sound-proofing, and well-designed) can be a great way to live for young people for a few years, and help reduce costs. Take a look at Amsterdam for example, it's population only recently growing back to the 1960s levels. [0] (suburbanisation happened in between). However, housing prices grew by about 8x since the bottom.[1] The funny thing you find is that we actually have way more housing than we used to, and until recently we actually had fewer people in the city than we used to, but prices are way higher. So what's changed? The most important change that I see is that, considering we have fewer people in more real estate, we all live larger. And you can see this in a lot of data. Average home size in the US has grown way larger, while household size shrunk, you can see in this graph. [2] The axis kind of get exaggerated a bit, but still the effect is clear. We have twice the amount of space per person today than just 40 years ago. That's not ancient history. This seems to be pushing up real estate prices more than anything. And one way to solve the issue is to simply reverse this trend of living larger. Instead, let's live a little smaller. If you look at other developments in our lives, this should make sense. A lot of our technology has miniaturised. We don't need a library of books or CDs at home, no record player, we have multiple virtual desks, some of us don't need a TV. We're more and more able to use public spaces to meet people, host people, be entertained. And of course, the nature of the family has changed, we marry less and later, have fewer children, live more individually. The trend of ever larger houses makes no sense in a world where we need smaller units, and often can't afford housing as it is. There's a lot of room for more (but always limited) smaller units in our housing stock, I think. Although I'm thinking 20-35m2, not 10! The second trend of putting small homes on wheels/trailer, just isn't interesting to me. They're mostly just campervans, only a bit less mobile. They don't really solve any issue, as they're super low-density. They exist only in cheap low-density areas where they can be parked, where there typically isn't a housing shortage issue anyway, or in a HCOL environment, in a grey area of the law when parked in someone's garden or something, which isn't a solution at scale. They're fun, but not a serious approach to housing at scale. Yet these terms, small/tiny houses/homes are often intertwined and it muddies the conversation a bit. [0] http://destadamsterdam.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/demofact-1900-2017-incl-fig-loop_parool-Chart1.png http://destadamsterdam.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/demofac... [1] https://www.nvm.nl/marktinformatie/marktinformatie https://www.nvm.nl/marktinformatie/marktinformatie [2] https://azgolfhomes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/American-Enterprise-Institute-Housing-Data.jpg https://azgolfhomes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/American-...
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    >So what's changed? In the UK it’s availability of finance. Mortgages used to be limited to three times the main earners wage, now it could be four or more times joint wages.
- bane 8y ago
  She ended up leaving that apartment for more space if you watch her later videos.
oftenwrong 8y ago
It is nice to be able to give up some living space in exchange for lower rent, or for a premium location. Tokyo allows this to a great degree. Where I live, in the US, the construction of small apartments is illegal, so the ability to make this trade is more limited.
- eecsninja 8y ago
  And parking minimum laws make it worse. Just look at all the new 2-bedroom apartments in North San Jose, that are inhabited by single people.
  - oftenwrong 8y ago
    In my neighbourhood all residential units must have at least one off-street parking space. Even if the unit is next to a train station. A parking space + aisles is basically the size of a microapartment. http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/05/Picture-30.png http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/0...
    - mc32 8y ago
      I don’t think that’s not without reason. Not everyone’s workplace is within a walk of a commuter train station.
      - ch4s3 8y ago
        Shouldn’t people who can commute by train have the option to live in a place that isn’t made artificially expensive by parking minimums? Should the law require non-drivers to subsidize parking?
        mhenr18 8y ago
        Parking minimums in residential areas are one of the few times I think they can make sense. Suppose there is enough on-street parking for other non-residential uses. You don't want these spaces being constantly used by car owners who are living in apartment complexes that aren't meant for them. As a local government, you have to play the game of not letting them park using parking restrictions while potentially also managing by-laws that allow residents to get parking permits that let them bypass some restrictions. This doesn't really apply in high-density urban areas, but I could see it being tricky to manage in growing areas. (Although, I guess from a non car-owner's point of view you wouldn't care about whether other drivers are being inconvenienced by a lack of parking, because the knock-on effects wouldn't affect you.)
jfoster 8y ago
Is building upward prohibitively expensive due to needing to make earthquake-resistant buildings? I know that in Sydney, Australia, there's a perceived "space shortage" but the true issues are regulatory, nimbyism, and behind most of that is a desire to protect the investments of existing property owners. We could just build upwards and have an abundance of centrally located dwellings. Most buildings in Sydney are just a few storeys high. Tokyo reminds me of Sydney, except for the earthquake factor. If the earthquake factor isn't an issue, then the situation is truly extraordinary; millions of people living in the tiniest of spaces just to protect existing investors.
- sien 8y ago
  Things may be changing. There are a huge number of cranes working in Sydney now. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-21/real-estate-warning-more-cranes-in-australia-than-us/7954108 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-21/real-estate-warnin...
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > We could just build upwards You can't just build up and up and ignore the issues at ground-level. As you add more vertical housing you still need more space and resources at ground level, for public transport, for parks, for schools which need sports ground, for everything. Everything else continues to get more congested and building vertically solves none of these inherent problems.
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    An interesting question is: do all factors scale at the same speed? The experience of e.g. Hong Kong and Manhattan seems to suggest that it's easier to provide for public transport, schools etc, in ultra-dense environments. One of the core advantages of ultra-density is that less space is needed for streets and motor traffic. Ultra-density also makes logistics for basic goods and services (e.g. food and health care) more efficient. Even greenery can be more efficiently provided in ultra-dense environments, because multiplexing is possible as parks are rarely used by the majority of the population at the same time. E.g. London parks are pretty empty almost all the time. (See also the scalability limits that high-rise buildings have w.r.t. economics of floor space, that I mention in another post.)
axilmar 8y ago
Aren't those tiny places bad from a psychological point of view? wouldn't be incredibly stressful over multiple years?
- eecsninja 8y ago
  Are 4 years of living in dorm rooms stressful?
  - axilmar 8y ago
    Student life is not the same as a working person life.
    - strken 8y ago
      Depends where you work. I just moved to SF and it feels exactly like being a student again, from communal meals to company run outings to the thrill of being in a new city. I'll probably spend a year or two in a studio apartment slightly larger than the ones in the article and then find a house with housemates, just like I did back in uni.
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    Yes it would be. 30 weeks of 1 year was enough for me.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Only if you are a hermit.
- frozenport 8y ago
  Think of it as a bedroom. People don't spend too much time in these. Further, as the article pointed out, they have shared communal areas.
- etatoby 8y ago
  I think it's fine for a student, or temporarily. I wouldn't necessarily want to live in a tiny nor shared space if working full time.
sannee 8y ago
This looks about as big as my college dorm. Not exactly comfortable (given the fact that I work with hardware and have lab setup here) but also not the end of the world. If I only needed a computer, I would actually have shit ton of space.
tokyodude 8y ago
it may be my Western sensibilities but I find those small apartments dehumanizing. Like living in a prison cell or some kind of distopian sci-fi novel. note I've lived in Tokyo on and over the last 21 years. I've lived in college dorm sized apartments and visited friends in smaller. I get it's partly culture but isn't there some limit? Would living in a capsule hotel be ok to some? Is it 100% personal preference or is there some limit?
- wodenokoto 8y ago
  > is there some limit You have over 4000 people living in Internet cafes ... https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/29/national/social-issues/internet-cafe-refugees-3000-tokyo-survey-says/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/29/national/social...
- rudolph9 8y ago
  I think people tend to equate minimalism (i.e. only having things that bring value to your life) with living in a smaller home. Of course you could like in a larger space without owning tons of stuff, people just have a bad habit of buying way more things than actually use and the extra space allows for that. Personally, I went from owned a multiple bedroom condo with fair amount to things to only the things that would fit in a Subaru crosstrek. Following our weedding, my wife and I spent three months touring the country rock climbing. Frankly, the living conditions we're awful! It was cold and wet and crowded and traveling in the fall you are left with the dilemma what do you do when the sun goes down and you are literately sleeping in a space smaller than most coffins and you have to move all your stuff to the front seats in order to lay down in the back. However, it afforded us the privilege of visiting every state West of the Mississippi and the Canadian Rockies. I was an amazing trip that I wouldn't trade the world for! (side note: spending literally every moment with someone for 3 months strait in a very confined living space while constantly dealing with every day problems neither of you have encountered before is a really great way to break in a relationship) That said we now live in a 650 sq/ft apartment and life is a lot more comfortable.
  - thfuran 8y ago
chrisseaton 8y ago
We should build the equivalent of military messes but for civilians. Private bedroom and shower, and communal eating and living spaces. It's extremely social and would be perfect for young professionals.
- namdnay 8y ago
  They’re very common in India. “Private guest houses” if I recall correctly. You see adverts for them everywhere. I think it was common in Victorian London too
- qwsxyh 8y ago
  I would absolutely despise living like this.
- etatoby 8y ago
  “Sharehouse,” very common in Japan. Most of the times it's a repurposed hotel or family house, but in the past it was not uncommon to see buildings designed with this purpose in mind. Usually the shower, bathroom, and kitchen are in common, the former one on each floor. Usually there are paid professionals cleaning them regularly. I don't consider them a bad accomodation. It's the equivalent of a school dorm. I wouldn't necessarily want to live there if working full time, but that's just preference. You have to be an adaptable and accommodating person though.
ksec 8y ago
They look absolutely beautiful. The finishing is great, with lots of natural sunlight. I am pretty sure the attention to details in Japan won't let most people down. Compared this to living in HK [1], a 9m2 space would get you a toilet and kitchen combined as one. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed...
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ensiferum 8y ago
50 years later people won't be able to even afford even those apartments anymore. Next will the hyper "efficient" 1m² apartment where you sleep standing in the toilet bowl.
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kweks 8y ago
Whilst changing countries recently, I downsized to a 6m2 appartement for the days I came through the city. I've lived in 20m2 apartments before, and find the 6m2 vastly more comfortable, for a few reasons. 6 - 10m2 are tiny, which force you to keep possessions to a minimum, and stay neat and organised. 20m2 is double the size, but double the frustration: you can almost do many things in it, but always at a compromise. I'd have never expected it until I lived it, but 10m2 is much more comfortable than 20.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Jesus I find my London 79m2 apartment claustrophobic do you spend any time indoors other than sleeping? What about Guests? Partners?
  - hnarn 8y ago
    Finding 79 sqm of living space "claustrophobic", especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world, seems a bit odd to say the least. Just like most privileges in life, living space has a tendency to get taken for granted. A lot of people use extra rooms just to store possessions they should have thrown away a long time ago, or never should have bought in the first place. I personally think that seeing the times we live in, people in general really need to question their conscience when it comes to what you actually "need", and what habits we never question when it comes to how we consume. This doesn't just apply to living space.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      How is it odd? a prison cell on 5th avenue is still a prison cell. I have 1 bedroom, 1 office and a living room, I don't keep trash in the flat we have a storage unit, in fact unless we convert the 2nd bedroom/office to a closet we actually rotate clothes in and out of the storage unit because there isn't enough wardrobe space for 2 people for all seasons. Tiny apartments are a health hazard they damage both your physical and mental health, they aren't any more environmentally conscious than properly sized apartments and this whole minimalism fad is complete horeshit litterarly sold too and by useful idiots. A 6m^2 apartment is below what is legally can be called a room in the UK, In fact it's the size of a US prison cell (5.8m^2), 20m is blow the legal limit for a home which iirc is 37m2 but in the UK this only covers recent builds and conversion so you might still find 30m flats somewhere however depending on the council they are can be illegal to rent out. For perspective this is what 6 square meters look like https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6x9-jail-cell-960x514.jpg https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6x9-jail-... So yes while I was a bit hyperbolic I don't understand how someone can live in a literal prison cell yet alone calling it more comfortable than living in a small hotel room. But no I don't to question my conscience regarding what I need or don't need, what I want is an apartment in an area I like, close to what I need and want to have, for a price I'm willing to pay. Besides that I would opt out to get the largest apartment I can, 2 baths is a must because I live with a partner, having an extra room for work and or guests is also nice especially since it allows us both to work from home on the same day and gives us some room from each other if things get too heated and I don't have to be in her face or one of us has to go out.
coldcode 8y ago
At 6'5" this would be my nightmare to have to live in such a tiny space. I guess it's the price to pay to live in such an expensive area. Thankfully I work in a city with reasonable housing costs.
teambayleaf 8y ago
Actually this kind of "micro apartments" are pushed by landlords rather than dwellers. The basic problem is that there are a lot of small patches of lands in Tokyo that are too small to build a normal flat (recall that a patch of land is very, very expensive in Tokyo and you cannot just buy an adjacent land to expand it). Until recently, these small patches were left vacant since there was really not much use. Recently, due to lots of cheap money floating around, some speculative developers (Spilytus, referenced in this article, is one of them) try to utilize these lands, by building such micro housings. So it is a relatively new thingy pushed by supply side speculators and I honestly do not think these small housings have so much popularity among actual dwellers as this article suggests.
- mlrtime 8y ago
  How can you push supply? They would not build it unless there was some demand to meet it. They could build larger flats but they would cost more. There is apparently a market for people that want to live in a specific neighborhood at a certain budget.
  - basetop 8y ago
    Supply side is the "if you build it, they will come" idea. It's the idea that supply has a way of generating demand just like demand has a way of generating supply. Take smartphones. By making smartphones, an entire market was created. The supply created the market and all the apps, etc. I may be mistaken but I think my economics professor said that supply side economics is the dominant economic theory. Rather than the demand side, it is the supply side that's moving the economy. The supply side tells you what to like, what you need and what to buy. But as all things, it's a bit of an oversimplification.
    - msbarnett 8y ago
      > I may be mistaken but I think my economics professor said that supply side economics is the dominant economic theory. Rather than the demand side, it is the supply side that's moving the economy. It’s the politically dominant theory, insofar as it is the political dogma that provides justification for endless tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations and much bleating about how jobs are created by “job creators” rather than robust demand. In terms of actual academic economics at this point it has about as much rigour and seriousness as phrenology.
duxup 8y ago
With population decline are these necessary? Also maybe it is just me but I'd probabbly have to find some sort of method of dealing with air circulation and smell...
- jniedrauer 8y ago
  Population decline is mostly driven by the more rural areas of Japan. Tokyo's population is still rising.
  - duxup 8y ago
    Ah that makes sense, thanks.
iheartpotatoes 8y ago
If they didn't have to force a kitchen and bathroom into each room they could have a little more space. The boarding house model of the early 20th century was on to something.
- brianbaquiran 8y ago
  That's certainly an option. I live in a sharehouse in Tokyo. 15 men and women of different nationalities, each with a private room but sharing three toilets (one per floor), three "unit baths," and two sinks. There is a common kitchen and living/dining area.
gwern 8y ago
One thing I notice looking at the descriptions is the extent to which technology plays a role in making these sorts of acommodations more feasible. Air conditioning, of course, but also computers. If you look at photos of Tokyo apartments from the early '90s (eg _Tokyo: A Certain Style_, https://www.gwern.net/docs/japanese/1997-tsuzuki-tokyoacertainstyle.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/japanese/1997-tsuzuki-tokyoacerta... ), which were often photos of people making very similar tradeoffs for the same reasons (cheaper rent in the heart of Tokyo but then-relatively-small apartments, often one-room), the apartments are much larger than these but also far more cluttered, looking like they have hoarding disorders. Stereo sets, TVs, landline phones, walls or giant stacks of manga, vinyl records, cassette tapes, reference books, books in general, musical instruments (he photographed some musicians and music students), visual arts equipment - all of these take up an enormous amount of space collectively. But they can all be replaced by a desktop+large monitor and a smartphone and perhaps a digital input device like a tablet or keyboard for arts. (Even the desktop is physically far smaller than in the '90s.) And that's precisely what the photographed apartments here do: you see desktop computers, a small handful of books which perhaps are sentimental or favorites, and much of the bulk of the space seems to now be used up by clothes, with food-related items being the next biggest category. This raises the question of what could be done to reduce those? Food patterns will probably shift further to takeout/online purchases because of the enormous investments in logistics for rapid delivery (I'm particularly impressed when I read about JD.com in China, and Tokyo is a logical megalopolis to reach similar delivery speeds), but clothes are a tougher nut to crack. New fabrics which are more dirt/odor-resistant to allow more wear? Reversible clothes which provide '2 in 1'? Fewer dresses and more mix-and-match? Rental clothing services powered by cheap delivery?
- ohithereyou 8y ago
  I don't know what the soil is like where these tiny apartments are, but perhaps a basement with lockable storage/closet? The apartment I have in my midwestern city came with a closet in a shared room that is locked by my door key that I can use to store things outside of my apartment. Bulk food storage and clothing storage could then be moved there, assuming proper ventilation.
  - 8y ago
dangus 8y ago
Whenever articles about this come up, especially as it relates to Japan, I think it's important to remember that "not everybody does this." I would advise treating these kinds of articles as a slice of life for a specific set of people. Another example is a mini-documentary I saw recently about people in Japan living either temporarily or semi-permanently in Internet cafe cubicles. It was somewhat sad just because the kind of person to do that sort of thing is usually a little lost or lonely. But that doesn't mean everyone or even most living in Tokyo is lost and lonely. It's a big place with millions of people, and they're not all the subject of alternative lifestyle documentaries. Just like any other country on earth, there are undoubtedly Japanese people who trade commute time for extra space, just like we all do in just about any other city on the planet. Actually, I don't think these micro apartments are sad - for the right person who's out and about a lot, maybe they're single, or have specific priorities on location or neighborhood, I'm sure they're a great option. They're also only about $600 a month. To put this in further perspective, keep in mind that about 25% of the world does not have access to "basic sanitation," i.e. access to a flushing toilet shared by multiple families. In that context, perhaps our mental efforts sent toward pitying the lives of modern urban inhabitants with small apartments are misplaced. (Not to say that the main purpose of this article is to generate pity, but that might be someone's reaction)
- huehehue 8y ago
  > for the right person [...] they're a great option Definitely -- anyone who disagrees needs look at the conditions that some high-rent NYC apartments are in. Showers in the kitchen, windowless bedrooms, brown tap water, any number of safety/code violations, and so on. They're not exactly common, but there's not much of a stigma and people will gladly pay 3-4x the rent of those micro-apartments just to live in the thick of the action. And wasn't there a story about a Google engineer living in a van or something? Compared to the castles people have in midwest U.S., sure, they're a bit cramped. But $600/month to live in a major metro area with no roommates? Sign me up.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    And, frankly, it's nothing new. It was a cliche at least back to the 80s that newly minted grads in finance would deal with tiny rat-infested crap apartments with roommates in Manhattan rather than get something decent in Queens for half the price. Because they couldn't imagine not being in the middle of the action (and most of their friends were the same).
purplezooey 8y ago
Wouldn't want to fart in there.
matz1 8y ago
Its sad that in the US building no non-sense tiny, simple and cheap apartment is doesn't really make sense (due to regulation and stuff). Every builder seem to want to build big and 'luxury' type apartment.
socrates1998 8y ago
I lived in Japan in my 20's for several years and I loved my tiny studio in the middle of the city. It was perfect for me. I lived in Tokyo not have a roomy house, but to be in the middle of the action. The closer I lived to the center, the better. These apartments are the same thing. They are great for young professionals in their 20's, but if you want a family, they aren't feasible.
jaclaz 8y ago
Only as a data point, since 1975 there is Law here in Italy that makes some minimum requisites for living spaces, main points: 1) to be legally recognized (as a self-standing home) the surface of an apartment cannot be less than 28 square meters 2)the minimum height of rooms intended for "long permanence of humans" (which is anything but bathrooms, corridors and closets that can be as low as 2.40 m) must be 2.70 meters 3) all rooms as above need to have a window no less than 1/8 of the surface of the room 4) there must be at least one bathroom in the house with all four pieces: basin, bidet, wc and bathtub (or shower) 5) the size in #1 is intended for a "single" person residing in it, the minimum size for two people is 38 square meters and for each person living in the house (this is not usually enforced in practice) there must be at least 14 square meters of surface (up to the first four) and 10 square meters for each more person Very often local councils impose bigger sizes for the minimum apartment (in case of new constructions or refurbishing of old houses divided in more apartments).
GFischer 8y ago
I used to live in a 14 square meter (150 square foot) apartment in Uruguay while I was working and studying, for almost 8 years (definitely at age 25 like Sotaro Ito). Honestly, it wasn´t bad - I was outside all day, and the miracle of the Internet meant that when I was inside I wasn´t missing much. I did my studying and meetings on university buildings, so it was basically a dorm room. Several poor families (single mother and children, some immigrants) did live in the same 14 square meters and that was sad.

162 points by oska 8y ago

There's a good video from Living in a Big Tiny House covering one of these tiny Japanese apartments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVJbupG3Xg

oska 8y ago
That is a good video. Accent test for North Americans: See if you can say which person is the New Zealander and which is the Australian (before the 12 minute mark after which one of them says where they're from).
IkmoIkmo 8y ago
Hah, the go-to video for everyone to start with! Did anyone else think they'd make a good couple? Anyway, I wish we'd finally agree as a community to use one word for one thing, but not the other. i.e., small homes: just small homes (like OP's link, serious and important approach to housing). tiny houses: the new trend of putting a small home on wheels/trailer. (like 99% of the links on Google). I'm all for the former (small units, when fit with modern-appliances, sound-proofing, and well-designed) can be a great way to live for young people for a few years, and help reduce costs. Take a look at Amsterdam for example, it's population only recently growing back to the 1960s levels. [0] (suburbanisation happened in between). However, housing prices grew by about 8x since the bottom.[1] The funny thing you find is that we actually have way more housing than we used to, and until recently we actually had fewer people in the city than we used to, but prices are way higher. So what's changed? The most important change that I see is that, considering we have fewer people in more real estate, we all live larger. And you can see this in a lot of data. Average home size in the US has grown way larger, while household size shrunk, you can see in this graph. [2] The axis kind of get exaggerated a bit, but still the effect is clear. We have twice the amount of space per person today than just 40 years ago. That's not ancient history. This seems to be pushing up real estate prices more than anything. And one way to solve the issue is to simply reverse this trend of living larger. Instead, let's live a little smaller. If you look at other developments in our lives, this should make sense. A lot of our technology has miniaturised. We don't need a library of books or CDs at home, no record player, we have multiple virtual desks, some of us don't need a TV. We're more and more able to use public spaces to meet people, host people, be entertained. And of course, the nature of the family has changed, we marry less and later, have fewer children, live more individually. The trend of ever larger houses makes no sense in a world where we need smaller units, and often can't afford housing as it is. There's a lot of room for more (but always limited) smaller units in our housing stock, I think. Although I'm thinking 20-35m2, not 10! The second trend of putting small homes on wheels/trailer, just isn't interesting to me. They're mostly just campervans, only a bit less mobile. They don't really solve any issue, as they're super low-density. They exist only in cheap low-density areas where they can be parked, where there typically isn't a housing shortage issue anyway, or in a HCOL environment, in a grey area of the law when parked in someone's garden or something, which isn't a solution at scale. They're fun, but not a serious approach to housing at scale. Yet these terms, small/tiny houses/homes are often intertwined and it muddies the conversation a bit. [0] http://destadamsterdam.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/demofact-1900-2017-incl-fig-loop_parool-Chart1.png http://destadamsterdam.nu/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/demofac... [1] https://www.nvm.nl/marktinformatie/marktinformatie https://www.nvm.nl/marktinformatie/marktinformatie [2] https://azgolfhomes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/American-Enterprise-Institute-Housing-Data.jpg https://azgolfhomes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/American-...
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  >So what's changed? In the UK it’s availability of finance. Mortgages used to be limited to three times the main earners wage, now it could be four or more times joint wages.
bane 8y ago
She ended up leaving that apartment for more space if you watch her later videos.

oftenwrong 8y ago

It is nice to be able to give up some living space in exchange for lower rent, or for a premium location. Tokyo allows this to a great degree. Where I live, in the US, the construction of small apartments is illegal, so the ability to make this trade is more limited.

eecsninja 8y ago
And parking minimum laws make it worse. Just look at all the new 2-bedroom apartments in North San Jose, that are inhabited by single people.
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  In my neighbourhood all residential units must have at least one off-street parking space. Even if the unit is next to a train station. A parking space + aisles is basically the size of a microapartment. http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/05/Picture-30.png http://usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/0...
  - mc32 8y ago
    I don’t think that’s not without reason. Not everyone’s workplace is within a walk of a commuter train station.
    - ch4s3 8y ago
      Shouldn’t people who can commute by train have the option to live in a place that isn’t made artificially expensive by parking minimums? Should the law require non-drivers to subsidize parking?
      - mhenr18 8y ago
        Parking minimums in residential areas are one of the few times I think they can make sense. Suppose there is enough on-street parking for other non-residential uses. You don't want these spaces being constantly used by car owners who are living in apartment complexes that aren't meant for them. As a local government, you have to play the game of not letting them park using parking restrictions while potentially also managing by-laws that allow residents to get parking permits that let them bypass some restrictions. This doesn't really apply in high-density urban areas, but I could see it being tricky to manage in growing areas. (Although, I guess from a non car-owner's point of view you wouldn't care about whether other drivers are being inconvenienced by a lack of parking, because the knock-on effects wouldn't affect you.)

jfoster 8y ago

Is building upward prohibitively expensive due to needing to make earthquake-resistant buildings? I know that in Sydney, Australia, there's a perceived "space shortage" but the true issues are regulatory, nimbyism, and behind most of that is a desire to protect the investments of existing property owners. We could just build upwards and have an abundance of centrally located dwellings. Most buildings in Sydney are just a few storeys high. Tokyo reminds me of Sydney, except for the earthquake factor. If the earthquake factor isn't an issue, then the situation is truly extraordinary; millions of people living in the tiniest of spaces just to protect existing investors.

sien 8y ago
Things may be changing. There are a huge number of cranes working in Sydney now. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-21/real-estate-warning-more-cranes-in-australia-than-us/7954108 https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-21/real-estate-warnin...
chrisseaton 8y ago
> We could just build upwards You can't just build up and up and ignore the issues at ground-level. As you add more vertical housing you still need more space and resources at ground level, for public transport, for parks, for schools which need sports ground, for everything. Everything else continues to get more congested and building vertically solves none of these inherent problems.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  An interesting question is: do all factors scale at the same speed? The experience of e.g. Hong Kong and Manhattan seems to suggest that it's easier to provide for public transport, schools etc, in ultra-dense environments. One of the core advantages of ultra-density is that less space is needed for streets and motor traffic. Ultra-density also makes logistics for basic goods and services (e.g. food and health care) more efficient. Even greenery can be more efficiently provided in ultra-dense environments, because multiplexing is possible as parks are rarely used by the majority of the population at the same time. E.g. London parks are pretty empty almost all the time. (See also the scalability limits that high-rise buildings have w.r.t. economics of floor space, that I mention in another post.)

axilmar 8y ago

Aren't those tiny places bad from a psychological point of view? wouldn't be incredibly stressful over multiple years?

eecsninja 8y ago
Are 4 years of living in dorm rooms stressful?
- axilmar 8y ago
  Student life is not the same as a working person life.
  - strken 8y ago
    Depends where you work. I just moved to SF and it feels exactly like being a student again, from communal meals to company run outings to the thrill of being in a new city. I'll probably spend a year or two in a studio apartment slightly larger than the ones in the article and then find a house with housemates, just like I did back in uni.
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  Yes it would be. 30 weeks of 1 year was enough for me.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Only if you are a hermit.
frozenport 8y ago
Think of it as a bedroom. People don't spend too much time in these. Further, as the article pointed out, they have shared communal areas.
etatoby 8y ago
I think it's fine for a student, or temporarily. I wouldn't necessarily want to live in a tiny nor shared space if working full time.

sannee 8y ago

This looks about as big as my college dorm. Not exactly comfortable (given the fact that I work with hardware and have lab setup here) but also not the end of the world. If I only needed a computer, I would actually have shit ton of space.

tokyodude 8y ago

it may be my Western sensibilities but I find those small apartments dehumanizing. Like living in a prison cell or some kind of distopian sci-fi novel. note I've lived in Tokyo on and over the last 21 years. I've lived in college dorm sized apartments and visited friends in smaller. I get it's partly culture but isn't there some limit? Would living in a capsule hotel be ok to some? Is it 100% personal preference or is there some limit?

wodenokoto 8y ago
> is there some limit You have over 4000 people living in Internet cafes ... https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/29/national/social-issues/internet-cafe-refugees-3000-tokyo-survey-says/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/01/29/national/social...
rudolph9 8y ago
I think people tend to equate minimalism (i.e. only having things that bring value to your life) with living in a smaller home. Of course you could like in a larger space without owning tons of stuff, people just have a bad habit of buying way more things than actually use and the extra space allows for that. Personally, I went from owned a multiple bedroom condo with fair amount to things to only the things that would fit in a Subaru crosstrek. Following our weedding, my wife and I spent three months touring the country rock climbing. Frankly, the living conditions we're awful! It was cold and wet and crowded and traveling in the fall you are left with the dilemma what do you do when the sun goes down and you are literately sleeping in a space smaller than most coffins and you have to move all your stuff to the front seats in order to lay down in the back. However, it afforded us the privilege of visiting every state West of the Mississippi and the Canadian Rockies. I was an amazing trip that I wouldn't trade the world for! (side note: spending literally every moment with someone for 3 months strait in a very confined living space while constantly dealing with every day problems neither of you have encountered before is a really great way to break in a relationship) That said we now live in a 650 sq/ft apartment and life is a lot more comfortable.
- thfuran 8y ago

chrisseaton 8y ago

We should build the equivalent of military messes but for civilians. Private bedroom and shower, and communal eating and living spaces. It's extremely social and would be perfect for young professionals.

namdnay 8y ago
They’re very common in India. “Private guest houses” if I recall correctly. You see adverts for them everywhere. I think it was common in Victorian London too
qwsxyh 8y ago
I would absolutely despise living like this.
etatoby 8y ago
“Sharehouse,” very common in Japan. Most of the times it's a repurposed hotel or family house, but in the past it was not uncommon to see buildings designed with this purpose in mind. Usually the shower, bathroom, and kitchen are in common, the former one on each floor. Usually there are paid professionals cleaning them regularly. I don't consider them a bad accomodation. It's the equivalent of a school dorm. I wouldn't necessarily want to live there if working full time, but that's just preference. You have to be an adaptable and accommodating person though.

ksec 8y ago

They look absolutely beautiful. The finishing is great, with lots of natural sunlight. I am pretty sure the attention to details in Japan won't let most people down. Compared this to living in HK [1], a 9m2 space would get you a toilet and kitchen combined as one. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed...

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ensiferum 8y ago

50 years later people won't be able to even afford even those apartments anymore. Next will the hyper "efficient" 1m² apartment where you sleep standing in the toilet bowl.

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kweks 8y ago

Whilst changing countries recently, I downsized to a 6m2 appartement for the days I came through the city. I've lived in 20m2 apartments before, and find the 6m2 vastly more comfortable, for a few reasons. 6 - 10m2 are tiny, which force you to keep possessions to a minimum, and stay neat and organised. 20m2 is double the size, but double the frustration: you can almost do many things in it, but always at a compromise. I'd have never expected it until I lived it, but 10m2 is much more comfortable than 20.

dogma1138 8y ago
Jesus I find my London 79m2 apartment claustrophobic do you spend any time indoors other than sleeping? What about Guests? Partners?
- hnarn 8y ago
  Finding 79 sqm of living space "claustrophobic", especially in one of the most expensive cities in the world, seems a bit odd to say the least. Just like most privileges in life, living space has a tendency to get taken for granted. A lot of people use extra rooms just to store possessions they should have thrown away a long time ago, or never should have bought in the first place. I personally think that seeing the times we live in, people in general really need to question their conscience when it comes to what you actually "need", and what habits we never question when it comes to how we consume. This doesn't just apply to living space.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    How is it odd? a prison cell on 5th avenue is still a prison cell. I have 1 bedroom, 1 office and a living room, I don't keep trash in the flat we have a storage unit, in fact unless we convert the 2nd bedroom/office to a closet we actually rotate clothes in and out of the storage unit because there isn't enough wardrobe space for 2 people for all seasons. Tiny apartments are a health hazard they damage both your physical and mental health, they aren't any more environmentally conscious than properly sized apartments and this whole minimalism fad is complete horeshit litterarly sold too and by useful idiots. A 6m^2 apartment is below what is legally can be called a room in the UK, In fact it's the size of a US prison cell (5.8m^2), 20m is blow the legal limit for a home which iirc is 37m2 but in the UK this only covers recent builds and conversion so you might still find 30m flats somewhere however depending on the council they are can be illegal to rent out. For perspective this is what 6 square meters look like https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6x9-jail-cell-960x514.jpg https://weburbanist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/6x9-jail-... So yes while I was a bit hyperbolic I don't understand how someone can live in a literal prison cell yet alone calling it more comfortable than living in a small hotel room. But no I don't to question my conscience regarding what I need or don't need, what I want is an apartment in an area I like, close to what I need and want to have, for a price I'm willing to pay. Besides that I would opt out to get the largest apartment I can, 2 baths is a must because I live with a partner, having an extra room for work and or guests is also nice especially since it allows us both to work from home on the same day and gives us some room from each other if things get too heated and I don't have to be in her face or one of us has to go out.

coldcode 8y ago

At 6'5" this would be my nightmare to have to live in such a tiny space. I guess it's the price to pay to live in such an expensive area. Thankfully I work in a city with reasonable housing costs.

teambayleaf 8y ago

Actually this kind of "micro apartments" are pushed by landlords rather than dwellers. The basic problem is that there are a lot of small patches of lands in Tokyo that are too small to build a normal flat (recall that a patch of land is very, very expensive in Tokyo and you cannot just buy an adjacent land to expand it). Until recently, these small patches were left vacant since there was really not much use. Recently, due to lots of cheap money floating around, some speculative developers (Spilytus, referenced in this article, is one of them) try to utilize these lands, by building such micro housings. So it is a relatively new thingy pushed by supply side speculators and I honestly do not think these small housings have so much popularity among actual dwellers as this article suggests.

mlrtime 8y ago
How can you push supply? They would not build it unless there was some demand to meet it. They could build larger flats but they would cost more. There is apparently a market for people that want to live in a specific neighborhood at a certain budget.
- basetop 8y ago
  Supply side is the "if you build it, they will come" idea. It's the idea that supply has a way of generating demand just like demand has a way of generating supply. Take smartphones. By making smartphones, an entire market was created. The supply created the market and all the apps, etc. I may be mistaken but I think my economics professor said that supply side economics is the dominant economic theory. Rather than the demand side, it is the supply side that's moving the economy. The supply side tells you what to like, what you need and what to buy. But as all things, it's a bit of an oversimplification.
  - msbarnett 8y ago
    > I may be mistaken but I think my economics professor said that supply side economics is the dominant economic theory. Rather than the demand side, it is the supply side that's moving the economy. It’s the politically dominant theory, insofar as it is the political dogma that provides justification for endless tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations and much bleating about how jobs are created by “job creators” rather than robust demand. In terms of actual academic economics at this point it has about as much rigour and seriousness as phrenology.

duxup 8y ago

With population decline are these necessary? Also maybe it is just me but I'd probabbly have to find some sort of method of dealing with air circulation and smell...

jniedrauer 8y ago
Population decline is mostly driven by the more rural areas of Japan. Tokyo's population is still rising.
- duxup 8y ago
  Ah that makes sense, thanks.

iheartpotatoes 8y ago

If they didn't have to force a kitchen and bathroom into each room they could have a little more space. The boarding house model of the early 20th century was on to something.

brianbaquiran 8y ago
That's certainly an option. I live in a sharehouse in Tokyo. 15 men and women of different nationalities, each with a private room but sharing three toilets (one per floor), three "unit baths," and two sinks. There is a common kitchen and living/dining area.

gwern 8y ago

One thing I notice looking at the descriptions is the extent to which technology plays a role in making these sorts of acommodations more feasible. Air conditioning, of course, but also computers. If you look at photos of Tokyo apartments from the early '90s (eg _Tokyo: A Certain Style_, https://www.gwern.net/docs/japanese/1997-tsuzuki-tokyoacertainstyle.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/japanese/1997-tsuzuki-tokyoacerta... ), which were often photos of people making very similar tradeoffs for the same reasons (cheaper rent in the heart of Tokyo but then-relatively-small apartments, often one-room), the apartments are much larger than these but also far more cluttered, looking like they have hoarding disorders. Stereo sets, TVs, landline phones, walls or giant stacks of manga, vinyl records, cassette tapes, reference books, books in general, musical instruments (he photographed some musicians and music students), visual arts equipment - all of these take up an enormous amount of space collectively. But they can all be replaced by a desktop+large monitor and a smartphone and perhaps a digital input device like a tablet or keyboard for arts. (Even the desktop is physically far smaller than in the '90s.) And that's precisely what the photographed apartments here do: you see desktop computers, a small handful of books which perhaps are sentimental or favorites, and much of the bulk of the space seems to now be used up by clothes, with food-related items being the next biggest category. This raises the question of what could be done to reduce those? Food patterns will probably shift further to takeout/online purchases because of the enormous investments in logistics for rapid delivery (I'm particularly impressed when I read about JD.com in China, and Tokyo is a logical megalopolis to reach similar delivery speeds), but clothes are a tougher nut to crack. New fabrics which are more dirt/odor-resistant to allow more wear? Reversible clothes which provide '2 in 1'? Fewer dresses and more mix-and-match? Rental clothing services powered by cheap delivery?

ohithereyou 8y ago
I don't know what the soil is like where these tiny apartments are, but perhaps a basement with lockable storage/closet? The apartment I have in my midwestern city came with a closet in a shared room that is locked by my door key that I can use to store things outside of my apartment. Bulk food storage and clothing storage could then be moved there, assuming proper ventilation.
- 8y ago

dangus 8y ago

Whenever articles about this come up, especially as it relates to Japan, I think it's important to remember that "not everybody does this." I would advise treating these kinds of articles as a slice of life for a specific set of people. Another example is a mini-documentary I saw recently about people in Japan living either temporarily or semi-permanently in Internet cafe cubicles. It was somewhat sad just because the kind of person to do that sort of thing is usually a little lost or lonely. But that doesn't mean everyone or even most living in Tokyo is lost and lonely. It's a big place with millions of people, and they're not all the subject of alternative lifestyle documentaries. Just like any other country on earth, there are undoubtedly Japanese people who trade commute time for extra space, just like we all do in just about any other city on the planet. Actually, I don't think these micro apartments are sad - for the right person who's out and about a lot, maybe they're single, or have specific priorities on location or neighborhood, I'm sure they're a great option. They're also only about $600 a month. To put this in further perspective, keep in mind that about 25% of the world does not have access to "basic sanitation," i.e. access to a flushing toilet shared by multiple families. In that context, perhaps our mental efforts sent toward pitying the lives of modern urban inhabitants with small apartments are misplaced. (Not to say that the main purpose of this article is to generate pity, but that might be someone's reaction)

huehehue 8y ago
> for the right person [...] they're a great option Definitely -- anyone who disagrees needs look at the conditions that some high-rent NYC apartments are in. Showers in the kitchen, windowless bedrooms, brown tap water, any number of safety/code violations, and so on. They're not exactly common, but there's not much of a stigma and people will gladly pay 3-4x the rent of those micro-apartments just to live in the thick of the action. And wasn't there a story about a Google engineer living in a van or something? Compared to the castles people have in midwest U.S., sure, they're a bit cramped. But $600/month to live in a major metro area with no roommates? Sign me up.
- ghaff 8y ago
  And, frankly, it's nothing new. It was a cliche at least back to the 80s that newly minted grads in finance would deal with tiny rat-infested crap apartments with roommates in Manhattan rather than get something decent in Queens for half the price. Because they couldn't imagine not being in the middle of the action (and most of their friends were the same).

purplezooey 8y ago

Wouldn't want to fart in there.

matz1 8y ago

Its sad that in the US building no non-sense tiny, simple and cheap apartment is doesn't really make sense (due to regulation and stuff). Every builder seem to want to build big and 'luxury' type apartment.

socrates1998 8y ago

I lived in Japan in my 20's for several years and I loved my tiny studio in the middle of the city. It was perfect for me. I lived in Tokyo not have a roomy house, but to be in the middle of the action. The closer I lived to the center, the better. These apartments are the same thing. They are great for young professionals in their 20's, but if you want a family, they aren't feasible.

jaclaz 8y ago

Only as a data point, since 1975 there is Law here in Italy that makes some minimum requisites for living spaces, main points: 1) to be legally recognized (as a self-standing home) the surface of an apartment cannot be less than 28 square meters 2)the minimum height of rooms intended for "long permanence of humans" (which is anything but bathrooms, corridors and closets that can be as low as 2.40 m) must be 2.70 meters 3) all rooms as above need to have a window no less than 1/8 of the surface of the room 4) there must be at least one bathroom in the house with all four pieces: basin, bidet, wc and bathtub (or shower) 5) the size in #1 is intended for a "single" person residing in it, the minimum size for two people is 38 square meters and for each person living in the house (this is not usually enforced in practice) there must be at least 14 square meters of surface (up to the first four) and 10 square meters for each more person Very often local councils impose bigger sizes for the minimum apartment (in case of new constructions or refurbishing of old houses divided in more apartments).

GFischer 8y ago

I used to live in a 14 square meter (150 square foot) apartment in Uruguay while I was working and studying, for almost 8 years (definitely at age 25 like Sotaro Ito). Honestly, it wasn´t bad - I was outside all day, and the miracle of the Internet meant that when I was inside I wasn´t missing much. I did my studying and meetings on university buildings, so it was basically a dorm room. Several poor families (single mother and children, some immigrants) did live in the same 14 square meters and that was sad.