How Tokyo avoided the affordable housing crisis
I live in Tokyo and know the author, and have had many conversations&#x2F;discussions with him and other foreigners here. We disagree a bunch of times! But we do agree it&#x27;s an interesting topic. IMHO it all boils down to:<p>- Tech pays disproportionately high in Tokyo so yes, it&#x27;s &quot;affordable&quot; for us.<p>- If you come from anglo-saxon countries mainly (USA, London, AUS&#x2F;NZ), Tokyo will seem dirt cheap.<p>- If you come from cheaper countries like me from Spain, Tokyo will seem alright, not too cheap not too expensive.<p>- Definitely doesn&#x27;t seem &quot;one of the most expensive cities in the world&quot; as many people say, and I think that&#x27;s the key to understand the whole article&#x2F;author point of view.<p>The issue <i>is</i> IMHO that Japan, Spain and USA are used to very different standards of living in many regards, so it&#x27;s just impossible for a straight comparison (the markets I know best). For example, in Japan people are used to 1h+ daily train commute, readers here from the USA are likely used to 1h+ daily car commute, and I&#x27;m used to walk across my home city in ~30 min. This makes me prioritize a walking neighborhood near my job (I can walk there in ~40 min in Tokyo), but that means I had to choose either crazy expensive or tiny appt.<p>Same for house sizes, Japan is a lot smaller but smart about it, (like in boats where every small crevice is taken advantage of), while in Spain it&#x27;s usual to have a guest&#x2F;secondary room, and in the USA within that driving time people might even have a whole &quot;laundry room&quot;.<p>Another bit of cultural difference is seen in &quot;America’s largest city, New York started construction on just under 30,000 new housing units in 2020 while Tokyo started constructing 130,000 units.&quot;; while it&#x27;s probably true that the USA needs to build more, Japan sins on the opposite end of the spectrum where they build very cheap and demolish it after 20-40 years. I&#x27;d like to see a rate of &quot;housing built vs demolished&quot; to present these numbers as a net positive difference.