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I really hate this trope that is wheeled out about Japanese accomodation; the flats that people talk about would be considered too small to live in by western s

I really hate this trope that is wheeled out about Japanese accomodation; the flats that people talk about would be considered too small to live in by western standards. Most of them seem to be made of horrendous cheap plastic prefab; you get a corridor with a kitchen in it, a mezzanine to sleep on above said corridor that is too small to sit upright, a 7'x'7 living area and a bathroom (including toilet) that is about 2ft x 2ft. For this delight there are people being charged $1000 per month or more in rent. Add in the fact that Japanese have an extremely different relationship to property culterally (and due to earth quake fears) means propeerties are often knocked down and rebuilt (the article notes this - 600000 new homes for an ageing population seems like most of those are going to immigrants). A lot of people in Europe prefer the shared living, and it is better use of resources - you only need one bathroom/one living room per 3 people and those can be MUCH nicer than these micro appartments. London and the west also have different cultural values about building high rise property and overlooking neighbours. It's fine that Japan doesn't mind a sky scraper being built overshadowing their homes but for Londoners or elsewhere this is simply unacceptable to suggest we can change our whole culture to Japanese values and magically solve housing problems.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> London and the west also have different cultural values That’s the article’s point. Housing shortages are a political choice.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
c0nfused 7y ago
I think it's not quite as vigorous in opposition as that. The argument is more that housing shortages are a result of how we in the west regulate construction and housing leasing to under supply. I'm not a Londoner, but my american city of about 1 million people has more than 60 different residential zonings. My home can be a single family home, a day care, or a coffee shop with up to 2 employees who reside off the property itself. Additionally, the house is in a historic district and no changes to the exterior may be made that are visible from the alley or street can be made with out approval by the city via application and subsequent public forum. I can see how this would strangle growth of housing supply as the place grows.
nihonde 7y ago
On the other hand, there are virtually zero homeless people in Japan (certainly outside Tokyo) while they are seemingly everywhere in every Western city...so perhaps the quality of the bathroom accommodations aren’t really the point. I think you’re closer when you talk about cultural attitudes to “home”, but I’m not referring to some hokey ancient wisdom of the Far East. The fact is that it’s perfectly fine, even normal, to live in a “one room” in Japan. No one is going to shame you for it. I actually think some one-room apartments are super cozy, and feel like nice dorms. If you consider sento/public baths, you’ve got your shared public resources.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Uh, there are plenty of homeless in Tokyo, they do keep it tidier I guess. There are also homeless in Osaka and Nagoya. I assume other big cities have homeless, but I’ve only been to (and seen them) in these three cities.
  - osdiab 7y ago
    That said it's nothing compared to the homeless situation in SF. My Japanese gf visited SF for 2 months, and she was seriously shocked by how horrible the homelessness situation was. She never imagined any developed country could have such awful conditions, and felt like she was in "the city of the walking dead." So that's the reputation American cities are getting internationally. Something to really be ashamed about.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Japan has poverty and mental illness just like the states, but somehow they are more organized about “being homeless” and pooping in the street isn’t acceptable. That being said, I’ve seen much worse in India and SE Asia, but developing countries will be like that.
      - coliveira 7y ago
        There is no way to compare India to the US. Homelessness in the US is a matter of (lack of) policy and indifference.
strken 7y ago
I wish that regulators would stop assuming that "cultural values" are more important to me than paying half as much rent, and that I shouldn't be allowed to live in a cheap studio with a built in mezzanine.
- andy_ppp 7y ago
  They aren't, there are no regulations on this. I hope you get what you wish for.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > there are no regulations on this Of course there are. FAR limits, zoning rules, all manner of review processes inhibiting construction, et cetera.
  - geofft 7y ago
    In the US there certainly are regulations on that! https://jorgefontan.com/micro-apartments-minimum-apartment-size-nyc/ https://jorgefontan.com/micro-apartments-minimum-apartment-s... https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-supervisors-back-micro-apartments-4055493.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-supervisors-back-... https://la.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18281150/santa-monica-micro-apartment-ban https://la.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18281150/santa-monica-micro-...
  - strken 7y ago
    There are usually quite a lot of regulations on dwellings, often including room size, layout, window placement, ceiling height, etc. The specific "guidelines" for places I've lived are: https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/80994/Apartment-Design-Guidelines-for-Victoria_August-2017.pdf https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/... http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residential_design_guidelines.pdf http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residenti... The San Francisco guidelines are particularly onerous, but the Victorian guidelines still set e.g. minimum sizes for bedrooms and living areas.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
momokoko 7y ago
Not to mention that the US Dollar and the UK Pound are much more attractive for foreign investment than the Japanese Yen. We can easily measure this by comparing Japanese bond demand with that of the US, UK and Europe. Not to mention that Japan is not currently an attractive place for Chinese investment for reasons I will not go into here. Real estate is going up due to foreign investment. We are watching in real time as the slowdown in China is showing a direct correlation with west coast US and west coast Canadian real estate markets cooling. Buffalo, NY, and many other rust belt cities, have seen significant increases in housing prices while their populations decrease rapidly. I second how boring listening to the trope about Japanese real estate prices when it has nothing to do with attitudes towards building. North Dakota has little to no zoning restrictions and we certainly don't see those prices staying in reasonable amounts. It is so obviously false to anyone even remotely involved in investment or real estate, that I sometimes wonder if there is some kind of agenda that pushes this nonsense outside of your typical internet obsessive ideologies.
ousta 7y ago
sure man western countries are buying top quality materials for your million dollar garage in the middle of london. top quality tar man! LOL.
SECProto 7y ago
> the flats that people talk about would be considered too small to live in by western standards. Most of them seem to be made of horrendous cheap plastic prefab; you get a corridor with a kitchen in it, a mezzanine to sleep on above said corridor that is too small to sit upright, a 7'x'7 living area and a bathroom (including toilet) that is about 2ft x 2ft. What are you talking about? That sounds like the kind of accommodation so rare that it gets articles written [1] for being so innovative. Apartments in Japan are small, but I have never seen one like that except on the internet, or in Hong Kong. As a counterpoint, the typical small single occupant housing I saw in Japan had the following characteristics: solid concrete construction, a narrow kitchen (double burner with fish broiler, sink, counter, rice cooker, and microwave, with cupboards above and below), a small living room plus a small tatami bedroom to the side (though these spaces likely aren't separate in denser cities), a closet-sized toilet room, and a larger room with bath. So yes, they are certainly smaller than anything you find in most western countries - but that is because zoning makes it illegal. {1} https://www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/tiny-tokyo-apartment/ https://www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/tiny-tokyo-apartment/
- osdiab 7y ago
  For a real-life anecdote, last year I lived in Tokyo in a 6 jo apartment (tatami bed + living room around 110 sq ft + about equal size bathroom and kitchen), and my rent 40 minutes by train from Shibuya station and 15 minutes from Kichijoji (#1 most livable Tokyo neighborhood) was around $430/mo. I have also heard that prefab is really common - in fact just walking around Tokyo it does look like there's a ton of prefab houses. That said I've toured around some and been inside some, and they were very comfortable, more so than my current rickety San Francisco apartment and similarly to brand new NYC ones I've been in - so I don't consider them lower quality than what I typically see in American cities just because they're prefab. Rather it's far more efficient and that keeps costs down. There is something to be said about traditional Japanese living being more space-efficient - folding out your futon means that you don't have to have separate permanent bedrooms, dining rooms etc like a Western apartment would have, which allows for you to have a decent living in ~220 sq ft like I did - but if you want to live like a Westerner, you will have to pay up for that, and I do hear that Western style apartments are more popular these days. After living in San Francisco, I felt like I had hit the jackpot, but as it turns out that's just "normal" in a functioning city.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> London and the west also have different cultural values That’s the article’s point. Housing shortages are a political choice.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

c0nfused 7y ago

I think it's not quite as vigorous in opposition as that. The argument is more that housing shortages are a result of how we in the west regulate construction and housing leasing to under supply. I'm not a Londoner, but my american city of about 1 million people has more than 60 different residential zonings. My home can be a single family home, a day care, or a coffee shop with up to 2 employees who reside off the property itself. Additionally, the house is in a historic district and no changes to the exterior may be made that are visible from the alley or street can be made with out approval by the city via application and subsequent public forum. I can see how this would strangle growth of housing supply as the place grows.

nihonde 7y ago

On the other hand, there are virtually zero homeless people in Japan (certainly outside Tokyo) while they are seemingly everywhere in every Western city...so perhaps the quality of the bathroom accommodations aren’t really the point. I think you’re closer when you talk about cultural attitudes to “home”, but I’m not referring to some hokey ancient wisdom of the Far East. The fact is that it’s perfectly fine, even normal, to live in a “one room” in Japan. No one is going to shame you for it. I actually think some one-room apartments are super cozy, and feel like nice dorms. If you consider sento/public baths, you’ve got your shared public resources.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Uh, there are plenty of homeless in Tokyo, they do keep it tidier I guess. There are also homeless in Osaka and Nagoya. I assume other big cities have homeless, but I’ve only been to (and seen them) in these three cities.
- osdiab 7y ago
  That said it's nothing compared to the homeless situation in SF. My Japanese gf visited SF for 2 months, and she was seriously shocked by how horrible the homelessness situation was. She never imagined any developed country could have such awful conditions, and felt like she was in "the city of the walking dead." So that's the reputation American cities are getting internationally. Something to really be ashamed about.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Japan has poverty and mental illness just like the states, but somehow they are more organized about “being homeless” and pooping in the street isn’t acceptable. That being said, I’ve seen much worse in India and SE Asia, but developing countries will be like that.
    - coliveira 7y ago
      There is no way to compare India to the US. Homelessness in the US is a matter of (lack of) policy and indifference.

strken 7y ago

I wish that regulators would stop assuming that "cultural values" are more important to me than paying half as much rent, and that I shouldn't be allowed to live in a cheap studio with a built in mezzanine.

andy_ppp 7y ago
They aren't, there are no regulations on this. I hope you get what you wish for.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > there are no regulations on this Of course there are. FAR limits, zoning rules, all manner of review processes inhibiting construction, et cetera.
- geofft 7y ago
  In the US there certainly are regulations on that! https://jorgefontan.com/micro-apartments-minimum-apartment-size-nyc/ https://jorgefontan.com/micro-apartments-minimum-apartment-s... https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-supervisors-back-micro-apartments-4055493.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-supervisors-back-... https://la.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18281150/santa-monica-micro-apartment-ban https://la.curbed.com/2019/3/27/18281150/santa-monica-micro-...
- strken 7y ago
  There are usually quite a lot of regulations on dwellings, often including room size, layout, window placement, ceiling height, etc. The specific "guidelines" for places I've lived are: https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/80994/Apartment-Design-Guidelines-for-Victoria_August-2017.pdf https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/... http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residential_design_guidelines.pdf http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residenti... The San Francisco guidelines are particularly onerous, but the Victorian guidelines still set e.g. minimum sizes for bedrooms and living areas.
ShorsHammer 7y ago

momokoko 7y ago

Not to mention that the US Dollar and the UK Pound are much more attractive for foreign investment than the Japanese Yen. We can easily measure this by comparing Japanese bond demand with that of the US, UK and Europe. Not to mention that Japan is not currently an attractive place for Chinese investment for reasons I will not go into here. Real estate is going up due to foreign investment. We are watching in real time as the slowdown in China is showing a direct correlation with west coast US and west coast Canadian real estate markets cooling. Buffalo, NY, and many other rust belt cities, have seen significant increases in housing prices while their populations decrease rapidly. I second how boring listening to the trope about Japanese real estate prices when it has nothing to do with attitudes towards building. North Dakota has little to no zoning restrictions and we certainly don't see those prices staying in reasonable amounts. It is so obviously false to anyone even remotely involved in investment or real estate, that I sometimes wonder if there is some kind of agenda that pushes this nonsense outside of your typical internet obsessive ideologies.

ousta 7y ago

sure man western countries are buying top quality materials for your million dollar garage in the middle of london. top quality tar man! LOL.

SECProto 7y ago

> the flats that people talk about would be considered too small to live in by western standards. Most of them seem to be made of horrendous cheap plastic prefab; you get a corridor with a kitchen in it, a mezzanine to sleep on above said corridor that is too small to sit upright, a 7'x'7 living area and a bathroom (including toilet) that is about 2ft x 2ft. What are you talking about? That sounds like the kind of accommodation so rare that it gets articles written [1] for being so innovative. Apartments in Japan are small, but I have never seen one like that except on the internet, or in Hong Kong. As a counterpoint, the typical small single occupant housing I saw in Japan had the following characteristics: solid concrete construction, a narrow kitchen (double burner with fish broiler, sink, counter, rice cooker, and microwave, with cupboards above and below), a small living room plus a small tatami bedroom to the side (though these spaces likely aren't separate in denser cities), a closet-sized toilet room, and a larger room with bath. So yes, they are certainly smaller than anything you find in most western countries - but that is because zoning makes it illegal. {1} https://www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/tiny-tokyo-apartment/ https://www.livingbiginatinyhouse.com/tiny-tokyo-apartment/

osdiab 7y ago
For a real-life anecdote, last year I lived in Tokyo in a 6 jo apartment (tatami bed + living room around 110 sq ft + about equal size bathroom and kitchen), and my rent 40 minutes by train from Shibuya station and 15 minutes from Kichijoji (#1 most livable Tokyo neighborhood) was around $430/mo. I have also heard that prefab is really common - in fact just walking around Tokyo it does look like there's a ton of prefab houses. That said I've toured around some and been inside some, and they were very comfortable, more so than my current rickety San Francisco apartment and similarly to brand new NYC ones I've been in - so I don't consider them lower quality than what I typically see in American cities just because they're prefab. Rather it's far more efficient and that keeps costs down. There is something to be said about traditional Japanese living being more space-efficient - folding out your futon means that you don't have to have separate permanent bedrooms, dining rooms etc like a Western apartment would have, which allows for you to have a decent living in ~220 sq ft like I did - but if you want to live like a Westerner, you will have to pay up for that, and I do hear that Western style apartments are more popular these days. After living in San Francisco, I felt like I had hit the jackpot, but as it turns out that's just "normal" in a functioning city.