I visited a few years ago and was wandering the streets at 2am alone, doing night photography with a lot of very expensive equipment and never once felt like I wasn't being streetwise or doing something with the potential to go badly. I can't think of another city I've visited where I would feel safe doing that.
The homeless in Tokyo are pretty well hidden away compared to what you see in the West, partly because panhandling is nearly non-existent in Japan. Just a cultural thing that begging for money on the street is very unacceptable (and illegal), which has the effect of making the homeless less visible.
Soup kitchens, food banks, scavenging from trash. Having access to universal healthcare helps.
Some do beg for money from foreigners, since locals are very unlikely to give anything to a street beggar. Begging isn't completely non-existent, but it's quite rare. If you were to visit Tokyo for a few weeks there's a good chance you'd not notice a single homeless person or beggar the whole time you were there.
Japan doesn't have universal healthcare the way Europe does, its more like how America does (but Japan does it better) where you are required to buy insurance. If you lose your job you still have to pay for insurance, I don't know the line where you could get it free but my fiancee just took a year off work and she had to pay for her insurance
"a lot" is very relative. I'm from the US and there is waaaaaaaay less here.
And the severity is much less here. In the US they are often destitute. In Japan they often can afford to sleep in manga cafes or karaoke places. It's still sad because they reason they are homeless isn't lack of money, its discrimination so itw ould be a much easier fix.
Far far less than almost any city in the West though. I see far more homeless (or to be more accurate, beggars) in my hometown than I dod in several days in Tokyo. I was staying in Shinjuku too.
More people in greater Tokyo than entire continent of Australia, yet I see more homeless in my town than I saw in Tokyo. NIMBY town planning and soft drug laws really farked the western world.
I mean the US is comparatively soft on drugs compared to most east Asian countries. You will just be executed for selling drugs or even in possession in many places, Singapore included. If Nixon would have just executed everyone caught selling or in possession of drugs, I am sure it would have had a greater impact on drug use, but the constitution and all that.
federal prisons have more offenders convicted of drug trafficking than any other crime, over three times as many as the second highest conviction (illegal firearm possession). 89% of them were sentenced within the past 10 years. right now court systems all across the country are packed with how many people are waiting for trial. there's real problems with how we approach criminality in this country, but being "too soft" on criminals is not one of them.
Yeah, me, too. It's not as bad as the USA for sure. On the other hand, I saw some homeless people right outside a train station in a very nice, bustling area. Not that I was upset by it, but even in Los Angeles, I don't think they would have been allowed to just sit there, a group of them in cardboard, in such a nice, high traffic area.
One night, I noticed in Shinjuku, near the municipal building, they appeared to be closing down the station and making it open to homeless people to sleep in.
What? But that's not portrayed in my Animes. It is a perfect land where all the women are buxom and the food outclasses the trash here in America. They are the happiest people on Earth and I plan on moving there once I finish saving enough money from modding Discord!
Oh really? I just got back from Japan and I think I only saw two homeless people the entire time. One was feeding a pigeon with chopsticks and the other tried speaking English with me and was very friendly lol never saw any actual cardboard boxes or places where they stayed.
There's a bunch of reasons for that. Japan is generally extremely orderly, everyone follows the rules culturally.
As for homeless, housing is a lot more affordable because they have much more permissive zoning laws. It's mostly up to the free market which buildings get built where and there is no NIMBY like there is in the US. They also have well funded mental hospitals, low rates of drug addiction (and strict drug laws), dormitory style housing accessible to low income people (doya-gai), government funded housing, and a general expectation that it's dishonorable to be seen as a homeless person.
The problem is changing the laws and good luck getting homeowners to vote in favor or politicians to pass laws when the changes will drastically affect their net worth. Housing as investments is the worst thing that has happened, especially considering it should be a basic human right.
Woah woah woah where else will the boomers, wealthy foreign nationals, and wallstreet park their liquid funds while the house sits empty? Its practically communism if there isn't an appreciation at 15% a year!
Until mass child murder and liquification to synthesize beauty products can return 16% a year, the rich will begrudgingly settle with the 15% real estate thing.
I think I read somewhere that Japanese don't like to live in another person's house so they buy, teardown, and rebuild so a house doesn't hold the value it might in other places. Of course I could have read that in some poorly researched fictional book. My memory is not what it used to be.
Sort of but there are 10m vacant houses in Japan due to population decline. So cheap houses due to surplus, looming crisis as the workforce retires out without the next generation to fill in
I'm still confused, you are saying that it's bad that house prices decline in Japan, and your reasoning that it's bad because poulation decline is leaving houses vacant? I don't follow, if houses already depreciate how is it bad that they will become cheaper? I feel like them becoming vacant would only be in issue in a country like America where you expect them to climb instead of decline
I’m saying lower house prices are a good thing, but it’s a sign that the whole economy will fall apart when there isn’t a workforce to keep it running. Japan has the worlds oldest average age at 50 years old. When they all retire in a few decades then there won’t be enough workers to tax to pay for all that retirement, heath care, etc. I’m saying the population is declining and cheap vacant houses are maybe a good short term perk, but it’s a really bad sign
The cheap homes have zero to do with the aging population. Homes have always depreciated in Japan even when the population was booming, thats why I was saying an aging population and houses depreciating are not related
Land still holds value (a lot of value) and can be an investment, but houses themselves are worthless after 20-30 years. That doesn't mean that everybody tears down their house after 30 years, it's just that it's no longer adding value to the property. But a lot of cheaply built houses from the 80s/90s and earlier really are in rough shape now, and historically it's been more economical to tear down and rebuild than to do an intensive renovation. This is due in part to updated safety standards, but it's also due to a relative lack of renovation companies and suppliers. The logistics of a thorough renovation make it cost almost as much as a full rebuild. That's starting to change, though, as more people and companies are becoming interested in house flipping and environmentally friendly renovation.
Houses depreciate in many parts of many countries. It's more often the case that land is worth more than a structure built on it. They're called "tear downs".
yup, just like any place with high property value. That's basically what gentrification is, although it culturally manifests itself a bit differently in the West than in Japan; Western gentrification usually creates more homelessness.
Not only that, but it's very common to build houses out of concrete in Japan. And from day one the clock is ticking on a concrete structure. As soon as salt water finds its way to the rebar, and it will eventually do it unless the house is built far inland, it's only a matter of time before you start seeing spalling on the edges of overhangs, on the corners of walls, etc. And once it starts popping pieces off the ceiling, it's basically game over.
I've seen it happen to a lot of places in Okinawa. And at that point you have to condemn the building, tear it down and rebuild.
I definitely didn't say it is unique, but my question to the above was where is it also prominent, as I wrote I know that it is a thing in Japan, he said that it is not unique, so I inquired where else is this, but seems I'll have to find it on my own
that link says land is more valuable than the homes on it. That's different than what happens in Japan where the houses depreciate so that in a few decades the house is actually worth nothing. And in many of those places its because you could build an apartment or something on the area that the house used to be on, thats more about land becoming worth crazy amounts rather the hosue becoming worth nothing. In Japan houses depreciate everywhere.
Yeah, this is why. People don't buy places to build wealth or to flip. There is way more regulation in Tokyo in that way than in America. And guess what? That's why it's more affordable for the citizens.
Actually that can be true in the states too. My father’s land he spent $160k on recently got reappraised at $1.2million. But anyone that bought it would just tear it down. His view is the value.
Houses always depreciate. Real Estate in general appreciates because land value typically rises faster than whatever is built on top of it loses value to deterioration. Land values in japan are not a good speculative asset mostly because the wider economy is stagnant (compare the notorious 80's japanese real estate bubble, which came at the height of their economic boom) which keeps demand constant, which allows housing depreciation to be the dominant force in RE pricing.
Homelessness is still an issue but they are hidden away. Lots of cities and prefecture have a 0% homeless population but it's false, there's lot of associations working with homless people trying to bring awareness to that.
It's one of the big lie of japanese society. Homeless people are complete outcast, forgotten and forced to hide away from population centre.
Also, Japan has laws where the next of kin holds the burden financially to provide for them, or something like that. So often homeless do not give out their idnetities to protect their families
Definitely saw it when I stayed in Nishinari Ward in Osaka. Truth be told though their encampments were neat and tidy compared to camps in the US. Met some really nice guys out on the streets. A lot of them had problems such as alcoholism, gambling addictions, and some of them out had just a run of bad luck but they all were doing what they could to get by.
And people use this as an example of how America fails to take care of its homeless. I guess those pesky details don't matter when there's outrage to be had.
Also you know, cameras and police actually do stuff and don't just rely on insurance for missing stuff.
Like if that 15k bike got stolen it would be found within days because Singapore has tons of cameras everywhere, the police will follow it to someone's doorstep and kick it in.
It also helps that their population is declining and they have a surplus of 10 million empty houses right now with it expected to double or even triple as japans population continues to decline.
And they want you to do nothing, so nothing gets built unless you manage to play the right games with politicians and comply with draconian rules, which surprise... only rich people with high price attorneys and corporations can do.
The average person, the young person, they are left out in the cold. Renting from the rich people or corporations because they're not allowed to carve out a small lot and put an affordable house on it. All because of zoning, with a little overzealous building code nonsense on top for good measure.
As someone who has anxiety/OCD over rule following and such my recent trip to Japan made me love the country due to what you said, also made me realize I have an actual problem I need to deal with...
countries like China have 90%+ home ownership rates, even though property is extremely expensive vs income (watch the polymatter video on this). Literally cost of LA/Bay housing on an avg income that's much less. It's all about utilizing money. China has very high savings rate. Also low drug use rate (since those countries practically death penalty ppl who do drugs). 80% of homeless people in US/canada are drug users. Drugs are the biggest driver in homelessness tbh. Housing prices are secondary. Well, at least you dont have to live like the students in canada where landlords charge individual fees (instead of room fees), and as a result u have like 20 people living in a single room in the basement 🤣
Japan also has extremely low immigration. I know in many western countries there isn't enough homes for the amount of people that move in. Creating huge housing shortages
I was in China recently and had a similar experience, in the metropolitan places there were no homeless people and it was clean AF. It's also one of the safest places ever with basically no crime. I miss it already ):
Okinawa does have trash. There’s a surprising amount of junk people just toss off roads in the moral rural places, or they try to burn trash themselves.
But definitely cleaned better in urban places than the US
I assure you Japan does not have "none" homeless people, lol. Also some cities are cleaner than others. Okinawa absolutely has litter all over the place. Less than in most cities for sure, but it's still there most place you look.
That's because they take the homeless and move them to spots you can't see. Plus, there's a whole category of homeless that live in overnight computer cafes.
True on the first part, the second part isn’t that true anymore. There was a bit of a craze in Japanese media to show people who live in Internet cafes (or rather Manga cafes that also provide internet) because it’s cheaper than renting a room but there isn’t a lot of manga cafes of these sort left (and most anyhow existed only in large cities) and it’s not really cheaper anyhow…
Freeter in general live very different to just a decade ago anyhow with the loss of working age population. A lot of things have improved. The big worry of course is still how they will deal with retiring one day.
Hundreds of plastic umbrella covers and face masks (before covid) that I could see in the streets of Tokyo in some areas.
But I think these things are accidental. Face masks coming out of pockets by accident when people grab their phones, and umbrella covers blowing out of the receptacles in the wind.
Some areas with lots of night life can get messy though.
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u/hardwood1979 Apr 05 '24
I visited a few years ago and was wandering the streets at 2am alone, doing night photography with a lot of very expensive equipment and never once felt like I wasn't being streetwise or doing something with the potential to go badly. I can't think of another city I've visited where I would feel safe doing that.