Japan’s Vacant Houses

choi

Colin PA Jones, Perfect Storm of Factors Conspires to Empty Japan. japan Times, May 9, 2015.
www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2 ... nspires-empty-japan

Makino "predicts that by the time the Tokyo Olympics are held in 2020, Japan will have as many as 10 million empty homes, most of them single-family dwellings. This is probably a safe bet given government data showing that as of 2013, the number of vacant dwellings had already reached 8.3 million, accounting for over 13 percent of homes nationwide. Another 10 percent of homes are inhabited by a senior citizen living alone, so those will presumably be empty soon, too.

Note:
(a) "a Taisho Era machiya, meaning one of the traditional wooden houses in the ancient capital, the abundance of which helps make the city special"
(i) Taishō  大正 (年号, which is kanji)
(ii) Japanese English dictionary
* machiya  町家; 町屋 【まちや】 (n): "(1) townhouse (i.e. house in the middle of a town); traditional townhouse; (2) tradesman's house (esp. a home with a shop in front)"
* akiya 空き家(P); 空き屋 【あきや】 (n): "vacant house"
  ^ aki 空き 【あき】 (n): "(1) space; room; emptiness; gap; (2) opening; vacancy"
  ^ akigara 空き殻 【あきがら】 (n): "empty shell"
* dōshi(P); doshi 同士 【どうし(P); どし】 (n): "fellow; mutual; companion; comrade"

(b) "Tomohiro MAKINO’s 2014 book 'Akiya Mondai' ('The Empty House Problem')"
牧野 知弘, 空き家問題; 1000万戸の衝撃. 祥伝社, 2014 ("第9版に増刷")
(c) "perhaps you have some in your neighborhood — shabby-looking, typhoon shutters permanently down, unkempt gardens, inviting burglars and vandals"

The "shutter" is a noun. American may also says 'batten."
(d) "perverse rules result in vacant lots being taxed several multiples higher than when they have a house on them."

Taiwan is the same, which has imposed 空地稅, unheard of in US.
(e) "Municipalities depend upon property taxes for a significant part of their income"

property tax -- kanji: 固定資産税 (土地・家屋)
(f) "Towns that shrink below a certain size become inviable. Based on projected declines in female residents of child-bearing age, almost every municipality in a rural prefecture like Akita may cease to exist within two generations. The problem affects even those Japanese who thought they were well off. Makino writes of a large-scale condominium development next to a JR station in Kanagawa. Just 50 minutes from Tokyo by train"
(i) Akita Prefecture  秋田県
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akita_Prefecture
(ii) Kanagawa Prefecture  神奈川県
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanagawa_Prefecture
(capital is Yokohama 横浜(市); Tokyo on the north)

(g) Makino "argues that Japan needs to adapt to a new set of values, casting aside the monozukuri 物造り ('making things') obsession "

(h) The writer is a professor at Doshisha Law School.

Doshisha University  同志社大学
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doshisha_University
(private; at Kyoto; founded in 1875 as by NIIJIMA Jō 新島 襄 (also known as Joseph Hardy Neesima), as a school to advance Christian education)