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In Japan there no law stopping racial discrimination by landlords, so they don't need to hide it behind any urban planning laws. Meanwhile the lack of caring about neighborhood characteristics means the affordable housing is pretty bleak to actually inhabit.

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There absolutely is a law preventing racial discrimination by landlord.

Reference? As far as I’m aware there’s nothing explicit and despite prospective tenants regularly (anecdotally, the majority of landlords) getting rejected explicitly based on nationality/ethnicity, there has been exactly 0 consequences so far.

(I’d love to be proven wrong but my understanding is at the very least it’s murky and has never been tried in court)

It has been tried in court [0], at least for discrimination against foreigners. However, nobody really want to take the landlord to court, and moreover, you don't want to live in the housing that the landlord specifically don't want you. So while everyone let it slips, it's actually illegal and there is an existing cases.

0: https://invest-online.jp/qanda/qanda-trouble-32-16916/ among other reference you can Google using the keyword in that article.

Thanks for pointing that out. Still it doesn't actually stop anyone from discriminating.

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