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Most American houses shouldn't appreciate with age either, as they are made of wood frame and mineral insulation, both of which degrade must faster than brick o

Most American houses shouldn't appreciate with age either, as they are made of wood frame and mineral insulation, both of which degrade must faster than brick or concrete. I've watched some walkaround videos of Japanese urban residential districts, and what I've noticed was their different approach to zoning. There are no front lawns or backyards, the doors lead right into the street or into a tiny courtyard. On the other hand, most houses are just a few storeys tall, there are no giant residential towers.

sdrothrock 7y ago
There are definitely no lawns in the city, but usually houses will have a little yard-like area even if it's just for parking bicycles. Land is expensive, so it's a bit of a waste to put a lawn where you could have a larger room if you've bought the land at current prices. Older family houses will definitely have lawns, often complete with a little family shrine. There are plenty of giant residential towers and more going up all the time. The difference there is that there are laws that protect rights to sunlight, so it's difficult to build taller buildings in an established neighborhood: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/24/how-tos/new-buildings-can-take-sunshine-life/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/24/how-tos/ne...
wil421 7y ago
I’ve lived in a house from the 1940s and it only needed a new roof. There’s a log cabin a common ancestor built in the early 1800s that was made from whatever was around. How many high rises made from stone and brick have been torn down in NYC to make room for modern buildings? New England has a ton of really old wood houses that people pay a premium for.
- sdrothrock 7y ago
  > I’ve lived in a house from the 1940s and it only needed a new roof. That's one of the major differences with Japan too -- a lot of housing is not meant to be multigenerational; it's built with the knowledge that the next person to buy the lot will be tearing it down and building a new house. A lot of the cheaper stuff in Tokyo is older wooden housing that either survived the firebombing or was tossed up cheaply in the post-war years, so it's very no-frills. My current apartment, for example, is raised about 30 cm off the ground with nothing around the actual building -- you can actually peer under the building and see the light from my kitchen going through the floorboards. There's storage built into the floor and if you pick it up, it just exposes a giant hole to the ground. No insulation, single-pane glass, a bathing room with rotting concrete and tile. I'm not saying all old housing in the US is better, but I definitely feel like building codes and/or initial quality was much higher in the US, so you have more buildings that were able to last longer (or through survivorship bias, the ones that lasted this long are just better) -- but in Japan, for whatever reason, you have a lot of these (almost literal) shacks with uninsulated walls and corrugated plastic panels on the roofs or across the windows.

sdrothrock 7y ago

There are definitely no lawns in the city, but usually houses will have a little yard-like area even if it's just for parking bicycles. Land is expensive, so it's a bit of a waste to put a lawn where you could have a larger room if you've bought the land at current prices. Older family houses will definitely have lawns, often complete with a little family shrine. There are plenty of giant residential towers and more going up all the time. The difference there is that there are laws that protect rights to sunlight, so it's difficult to build taller buildings in an established neighborhood: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/24/how-tos/new-buildings-can-take-sunshine-life/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/24/how-tos/ne...

wil421 7y ago

I’ve lived in a house from the 1940s and it only needed a new roof. There’s a log cabin a common ancestor built in the early 1800s that was made from whatever was around. How many high rises made from stone and brick have been torn down in NYC to make room for modern buildings? New England has a ton of really old wood houses that people pay a premium for.

sdrothrock 7y ago
> I’ve lived in a house from the 1940s and it only needed a new roof. That's one of the major differences with Japan too -- a lot of housing is not meant to be multigenerational; it's built with the knowledge that the next person to buy the lot will be tearing it down and building a new house. A lot of the cheaper stuff in Tokyo is older wooden housing that either survived the firebombing or was tossed up cheaply in the post-war years, so it's very no-frills. My current apartment, for example, is raised about 30 cm off the ground with nothing around the actual building -- you can actually peer under the building and see the light from my kitchen going through the floorboards. There's storage built into the floor and if you pick it up, it just exposes a giant hole to the ground. No insulation, single-pane glass, a bathing room with rotting concrete and tile. I'm not saying all old housing in the US is better, but I definitely feel like building codes and/or initial quality was much higher in the US, so you have more buildings that were able to last longer (or through survivorship bias, the ones that lasted this long are just better) -- but in Japan, for whatever reason, you have a lot of these (almost literal) shacks with uninsulated walls and corrugated plastic panels on the roofs or across the windows.