Why the Rise in Urban Housing Vacancies Occurred and Matters in Japan

Kubo, Takekazu; Mashita, Michihiro

doi:10.1007/978-981-13-7920-8_1

Cited by 14 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…One of the causes of the emergence of vacant houses in Japan is that houses occupied by the elderly are not passed on to heirs. 24) Ishikawa and Higuchi 25) conducted a case study involving the Nagaoka city center to examine the possibility of the succession of properties, especially in areas with increasingly aging populations. The results indicated that many individuals who had moved out of their elderly parents' houses did not plan to return to, and were unlikely to inherit, these properties.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

<b>Relationship between Rate of Vacant Houses and Rate of Houses below Exemption Point of Fixed Asset Tax in Japan</b>

Iwasaki¹

2021

URPR

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In recent years, the issue of shrinking cities has been under discussion in many countries. One of the problems caused by urban shrinking is the emergence of vacant houses and vacant land, and this aspect is receiving increasing academic and political attention in Japan. The factor of vacant houses has been underscored in many previous studies, but there has been little analysis of the vacancy rate and its factors from the point of view of maintenance cost. Vacant houses that have reached the end of their life span are abandoned for long periods because of high reconstruction and demolition costs or because of low maintenance costs, including special exemption from the fixed asset tax. Therefore, the vacancy rate may be high in areas with many houses whose assessed value for the fixed asset tax is less than the tax-exemption point. Analysis reveals a positive correlation between the rate of vacant houses and the rate of houses below the tax-exemption point of the fixed asset tax. In addition, a spatial lag model explaining the vacant house rate and the rate of houses below the tax-exemption point is a significant result.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

<b>Relationship between Rate of Vacant Houses and Rate of Houses below Exemption Point of Fixed Asset Tax in Japan</b>

Iwasaki¹

2021

URPR

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“…Along with the long-term economic recession in Japan since the 1990s, neo-liberal policy deregulating and privatizing public-owned services has been the key in maintaining Tokyo's competitiveness. As the population in most Japanese cities started to shrink and economic conditions worsened after the first decade of the twenty-first century (Kubo and Mashita 2019), maintaining Tokyo's strength was expected to contribute to the recovery of the Japanese economy.…”

Section: Aviation Governance To Strengthen Tokyo's Competitivenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divided Tokyo: Housing Policy, the Ideology of Homeownership, and the Growing Contrast Between the City Center and the Suburbs

Kubo

2020

Divided Tokyo

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This chapter examines the generation of Tokyo's division over time by focusing on the changes in national and municipal policies on urban planning, land use, and housing, as well as the outcomes of these long-term trajectories since the 1950s onward. By comparing with the Western urban discourse, we clarify the process of how Tokyo became divided in terms of residential conditions. The national government focused on the growth of major metropolitan areas, stimulating suburban development and homeownership in the suburbs from the 1950s to the 1980s. However, after the late 1990s, the target shifted from the suburbs to the city centers. Alongside global competition among cities, the long-term recession of the Japanese economy, and social changes, continuous investment to grow central Tokyo has increased in importance. In contrast, suburban neighborhoods are facing challenges related to an aging population and an increase in housing vacancies. Although government intervention is necessary, there are limited possibilities for the outer suburbs to revitalize and re-grow. The sharp contrast between the growth in city centers and the shrinking suburbs, and specifically the divided Tokyo, will become more obvious in the next decade.

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“…This has led to Japan's declining population from a peak of 128 million in 2008 (e-Stat, 2017) predicted to reduce by 25 percent by 2050 (Muramatsu and Akiyama, 2011). Such depopulation has been influential in Japan's shrinking regional communities and cities and contributed to increasing housing vacancies and economic stagnation since the early 1990s (Kubo and Mashita, 2020;Wakabayashi, 2020). In contrast, the level of population ageing in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 2020 is the lowest of these six societies, estimated at only 12.0 percent aged 65 or older in 2020, yet on a much steeper trajectory -it is expected to reach 26.1 percent by 2050 and 31.8 percent by the end of the century, just 10.1 percentage points behind that estimated for Japan in the same year.…”

Section: Ageingmentioning

confidence: 99%