Tokyo Achieves Affordable Housing

nytimes.com

8 points·jseliger··3 comments

What's particularly amazing is that it's the free market at work -- the privately run railways have an incentive to develop the land near stations to get more people to ride the train.

Draconian zoning laws and car-dependence have really screwed over the US when it comes to housing policy.

A national zoning law, for example, sharply limits the ability of local governments to impede development. Instead of allowing the people who live in a neighborhood to prevent others from living there, Japan has shifted decision-making to the representatives of the entire population, allowing a better balance between the interests of current residents and of everyone who might live in that place.

The ease of building in Tokyo means that new construction is not synonymous with luxury housing. Small workshops and factories are common. The Mendos’ neighbors include a custom lacemaker, a small factory that embosses items for department stores and a paper goods store.

TFA seems to follow the tradition of idealizing and misinterpreting Japanese society to fit some ideology. The hodgepodge arrangement of land usage in Japan is very old and I'm pretty sure is not the result of conscious planning at any level. Japan has always allowed what would seem to Americans as indiscriminate locating of various land uses. Although you see a lot of use specialization in urban areas, I think it is entirely due to land costs and transportation access. It is not uncommon in Tokyo to see neighborhoods with a mixture high/low-end residential, commercial, and industrial.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com