6 ms·

There will be so many villages left to ruin, so many practices lost to memory, it can be quite sad. Japan is again a rapidly changing society.

by ipnon 3y ago

jahnu 3y ago
I wish we developed a culture of managed retreat. This change is an opportunity to consolidate some villages and remove old ones letting the land re-wild. We can better serve the needs of people when clustered closer together than spread thinly and we get back some of the nature we lost.
themagician 3y ago
This is going to happen in a lot of places over the next 30 years. Italy and South Korea are also in big trouble. Unless we really ramp up immigration in the US, it's going to happen here too. On the plus side, everyone complaining about not being able to afford a house now… just wait 30 years. They'll be giving them out for free all over the place. The prices of real estate outside of major metropolitan areas will fall to zero.
- morkalork 3y ago
  Wow, as a millennial that really sucks. Say you're in your 30s now, you probably bought at the height of inflated prices and right when you're ritiring, the value of one of your major assets/investments goes into the trash. Yay.
  - tetris11 3y ago
    If you buy a house to live in it, you lose nothing. If you buy a house purely to flip it, then sure.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    The idea that of home as a fiscal vehicle needs to die. Homes should be treated much closer to cars: as depreciating liabilities. Land on the other hand...
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  Housing prices have risen to absurd levels even in portions of Eastern Europe that have seen significant demographic decline, so prices might not fall as much as you hope.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    capital is seeking safe havens; all of the Commonwealth countries too, I hear
  - themagician 3y ago
    Hope? If housing prices decline in the US the way they have in Japan it's going to completely change… everything, and not in a good way. Housing is the primary savings vehicle in the US. Almost everyone relies on values increasing in perpetuity. If housing prices dramatically fall the poverty rate among the elderly is going to go absolutely bananas.
- thefounder 3y ago
  Immigration is not the solution. It's a workaround. I fail to see how replacing Japan population with immigrants from Africa or South-East Asia would save Japan.
  - cycrutchfield 3y ago
    Replacing?
    - Anon_Forever 3y ago
      Yes, replacing. You're replacing native Japanese with foreigners. That is by definition replacing.
      - bt4u 3y ago
        [dead]
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        It really depends how you define what a people is. Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. Genetically, who cares. Culturally, that's up to the people.
        bongoman37 3y ago
        Outside of a few places like the US, people care a hell of a lot about the genetics. Try putting Africans in India, or Japanese in China, and so on, there is no such thing as the melting pot in the vast majority of the world.
        hnbad 3y ago
        They don't care about genetics. They just dislike specific groups of people. Which ones is largely arbitrary and has more to do with history than genetics. Some places also have a much narrower "in-group" than others, again largely as a result of history. In some cases the "in-group" doesn't even include all the groups of people that historically live in the same territory, e.g. present-day China has significant undertones of Han nationalism or India with Hindu nationalism, despite both countries being geographically huge and ethnically diverse. In the moment, aside from historical preconditions, the largest factor to how narrow this in-group is and how strong the dislike towards those not in it is, is mostly a matter of perceived scarcity and danger. As every good business owner knows, the best way to distract an employee from how small their share of the profits is, is to dangle a more desperate group in front of them as a scapegoat. Give someone your scraps, then make them deathly afraid others want to take it away from them, and they won't dare to ask for more (or solidarize with others against you - racism was one of the biggest cudgels against unions in the early 20th century US before simply framing unions as communist became an option).
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Houses are already dirt-cheap in US small towns. Move to a 3rd or 4th tier college town or dying farm town in Kansas, say, far from any metros, and you can score big-ass brick houses that’re nice & updated for like $100,000 or less, still. You’ll have bad public schools, local median wages will be shockingly far under what you’re used to, it’ll be far from major cities and notable natural attractions, and medical care will probably be mediocre at best. But there are tons of cheap houses in this country today. [edit] my point is there are tons of cheap houses now, but you (the general “you”) don’t want to live in them. In the future there may be more, but they will also be places people don’t want to live (economic decline and bad schools & medical care go hand-in-hand)
  - rnk 3y ago
    Your comments are so important and correct. Not many people have noticed that this will be increasingly a fact of life in the US. I remember when it was Walmart that destroyed the business districts of small towns when they built on the edge of town. Shrinking population in the US, lack of workers is here today! That also means fewer people to buy stuff over time. The population and economic retrenchment in the viability of life in small towns is one of the sources behind the passionate support for terrible people like Donald Trump. Their world is shrinking and they don't know what to do about it. It's not because of liberals or trans people somehow taking your stuff, and people trying to motivate you with cultural conflicts are not your friends. The economic model changed and we have fewer people around too. I'm not immune, as a software engineer my value to society will ebb and flow, who knows what Chat GPT will do to it.
  - themagician 3y ago
    And those $100k homes will go to zero. Rural Japan and Italy both face this today. The homes are dilapidated and free. I generally agree though. Population decline is going to decimate areas at a scale and with a speed I don't think anyone is prepared for. If you get trapped in the decline you are screwed.
- panick21_ 3y ago
  Housing is far more about land use and transportation policy plus other bad building regulation. It has basically nothing to do with total population.

There will be so many villages left to ruin, so many practices lost to memory, it can be quite sad. Japan is again a rapidly changing society.

by ipnon 3y ago

There will be so many villages left to ruin, so many practices lost to memory, it can be quite sad. Japan is again a rapidly changing society.

jahnu 3y ago

I wish we developed a culture of managed retreat. This change is an opportunity to consolidate some villages and remove old ones letting the land re-wild. We can better serve the needs of people when clustered closer together than spread thinly and we get back some of the nature we lost.

themagician 3y ago

This is going to happen in a lot of places over the next 30 years. Italy and South Korea are also in big trouble. Unless we really ramp up immigration in the US, it's going to happen here too. On the plus side, everyone complaining about not being able to afford a house now… just wait 30 years. They'll be giving them out for free all over the place. The prices of real estate outside of major metropolitan areas will fall to zero.

morkalork 3y ago
Wow, as a millennial that really sucks. Say you're in your 30s now, you probably bought at the height of inflated prices and right when you're ritiring, the value of one of your major assets/investments goes into the trash. Yay.
- tetris11 3y ago
  If you buy a house to live in it, you lose nothing. If you buy a house purely to flip it, then sure.
- packetlost 3y ago
  The idea that of home as a fiscal vehicle needs to die. Homes should be treated much closer to cars: as depreciating liabilities. Land on the other hand...
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Housing prices have risen to absurd levels even in portions of Eastern Europe that have seen significant demographic decline, so prices might not fall as much as you hope.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  capital is seeking safe havens; all of the Commonwealth countries too, I hear
- themagician 3y ago
  Hope? If housing prices decline in the US the way they have in Japan it's going to completely change… everything, and not in a good way. Housing is the primary savings vehicle in the US. Almost everyone relies on values increasing in perpetuity. If housing prices dramatically fall the poverty rate among the elderly is going to go absolutely bananas.
thefounder 3y ago
Immigration is not the solution. It's a workaround. I fail to see how replacing Japan population with immigrants from Africa or South-East Asia would save Japan.
- cycrutchfield 3y ago
  Replacing?
  - Anon_Forever 3y ago
    Yes, replacing. You're replacing native Japanese with foreigners. That is by definition replacing.
    - bt4u 3y ago
      [dead]
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      It really depends how you define what a people is. Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. Genetically, who cares. Culturally, that's up to the people.
      - bongoman37 3y ago
        Outside of a few places like the US, people care a hell of a lot about the genetics. Try putting Africans in India, or Japanese in China, and so on, there is no such thing as the melting pot in the vast majority of the world.
        hnbad 3y ago
        They don't care about genetics. They just dislike specific groups of people. Which ones is largely arbitrary and has more to do with history than genetics. Some places also have a much narrower "in-group" than others, again largely as a result of history. In some cases the "in-group" doesn't even include all the groups of people that historically live in the same territory, e.g. present-day China has significant undertones of Han nationalism or India with Hindu nationalism, despite both countries being geographically huge and ethnically diverse. In the moment, aside from historical preconditions, the largest factor to how narrow this in-group is and how strong the dislike towards those not in it is, is mostly a matter of perceived scarcity and danger. As every good business owner knows, the best way to distract an employee from how small their share of the profits is, is to dangle a more desperate group in front of them as a scapegoat. Give someone your scraps, then make them deathly afraid others want to take it away from them, and they won't dare to ask for more (or solidarize with others against you - racism was one of the biggest cudgels against unions in the early 20th century US before simply framing unions as communist became an option).
hotnfresh 3y ago
Houses are already dirt-cheap in US small towns. Move to a 3rd or 4th tier college town or dying farm town in Kansas, say, far from any metros, and you can score big-ass brick houses that’re nice & updated for like $100,000 or less, still. You’ll have bad public schools, local median wages will be shockingly far under what you’re used to, it’ll be far from major cities and notable natural attractions, and medical care will probably be mediocre at best. But there are tons of cheap houses in this country today. [edit] my point is there are tons of cheap houses now, but you (the general “you”) don’t want to live in them. In the future there may be more, but they will also be places people don’t want to live (economic decline and bad schools & medical care go hand-in-hand)
- rnk 3y ago
  Your comments are so important and correct. Not many people have noticed that this will be increasingly a fact of life in the US. I remember when it was Walmart that destroyed the business districts of small towns when they built on the edge of town. Shrinking population in the US, lack of workers is here today! That also means fewer people to buy stuff over time. The population and economic retrenchment in the viability of life in small towns is one of the sources behind the passionate support for terrible people like Donald Trump. Their world is shrinking and they don't know what to do about it. It's not because of liberals or trans people somehow taking your stuff, and people trying to motivate you with cultural conflicts are not your friends. The economic model changed and we have fewer people around too. I'm not immune, as a software engineer my value to society will ebb and flow, who knows what Chat GPT will do to it.
- themagician 3y ago
  And those $100k homes will go to zero. Rural Japan and Italy both face this today. The homes are dilapidated and free. I generally agree though. Population decline is going to decimate areas at a scale and with a speed I don't think anyone is prepared for. If you get trapped in the decline you are screwed.
panick21_ 3y ago
Housing is far more about land use and transportation policy plus other bad building regulation. It has basically nothing to do with total population.