Comment by ttul
11 days ago
“Japan’s liberal land use regulation makes it straightforward to build new neighborhoods next to railway lines, giving commuters easy access to city centers. It also enables the densification of these centers, which means that commuters have more places they want to go.”
This is the most important paragraph in the article. It can’t be overstated how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is and how much this has benefitted their society in ways we can only dream about here in the West.
"West" when we talk about urban spaces, walk-accessible cities and public transportation is, IMHO, the wrong category. Europe and USA are very far apart.
Europe and USA are both huge places so it depends what you mean. If you compare major east coast cities - Boston, DC, and NYC to European metros like Paris/ Madrid/ Lisbon the biggest tax on the citizens is the same in that it’s impossible to build anything so a huge % of income needs to go to housing.
Well, Japan isn't much different in terms of the share of income that goes to housing: https://housingpolicytoolkit.oecd.org/2.H_conso.html
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East coast cities were built before modern building codes.
Something that, for some reason, people in the states don't want to accept is that - when given the choice - the vast majority of people prefer living in dense urban environments.
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Great point.
Granted I’m approaching it from the perspective of a tourist or business traveler, but 6/6 of the European cities I’ve been in were fully navigable for my purposes via transit. I’d probably guess half or less in the US.
Even in NYC or SFO, the metro areas are so large it really makes the success rates low depending on the trip.
they might mean west of japan ;)
Go far enough and Japan is west of Japan, several times over. You can always keep heading west.
One thing that is critical is that the country hasn't turned home ownership into an ever growing financial asset that is meant to carry the majority of one's wealth into perpetuity
Well, it did at one point, it’s just that the crash that resulted was so nasty it disabused anybody of that notion.
At the peak of the bubble era, just the land underneath the Imperial Palace had an estimated real estate value larger than the entire state of California.
What major investments do they make instead? Or do they just not have much of a financial ladder?
Postal savings at 2% interest. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2005/08/how-did-japan-s-...
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Unfortunately that does not seem to have helped them keep housing affordable. Looks just as bad as anywhere else.
Source? I've always thought of Tokyo as a rare example of abundant and affordable housing among major world cities. Their rent to income ratio is like 0.3 while most major global cities are 0.35-0.4
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>how ingenious Japan’s system of zoning is
I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive? My bias/priors are that the simpler and truer statement is: it can't be overstated how beneficial more permissive zoning laws are to a society.
There are other aspects beyond simply being more permissive. I recall reading for example that property transfer tax is remarkably less on bare land, enough so that when travelling in Japan you will regularly notice bare lots for sale, as it is beneficial for the seller to tear down a lot before they sell it. This sort of thing encourages churn of housing, and coupled with liberal zoning, enables an accelerated increase in denser building. Tbh it probably encourages lower construction costs since more people are doing construction.
IMO in this whole conversation, whether discussing any jurisdiction not just japan, impacts of zoning is an over emphasized and tax policy under emphasized (ie. almost never discussed).
Property taxes on land zoned for residential use are 6x more expensive if left bare. That’s why Japan has an akiya plague, because even a dilapidated building will keep taxes down.
I couldn’t find a more general article so here’s an example from a generic small town council.
https://www.city.inagi.tokyo.jp/en/faq/kurashi/1001633/10016...
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I have a hard time believing that a tax code that incentives destruction in any capacity is a good thing.
If the land is more valuable without a structure the current owner has natural incentive to do that, or someone else has incentive to buy, demolish and re-list.
From what I remember, Japanese zoning allows small shops (there's a size limit) in any residential zone.
That means no car trips when you run out of bread or milk.
Smartest property of that zoning system IMO.
Fwiw that’s what we have in Germany, unless you live in remote places. You always have a Lidl, Aldi, or REWE you can walk or bike to.
No idea what our local zoning laws are
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I also wonder how much the pressure filled culture of not standing out has something to do with this. My impression is Japanese are under a lot more pressure to not abuse the permissiveness of the zoning laws.
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You haven’t lived until you have experienced the Japanese Kombini (convenience store).
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A huge amount of residential homes are actually in light industry zoned areas. I learned this surprising fact here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
> I'm only barely familiar with it so I ask this in good faith: is it really ingenious or is it just more permissive?
Let's start from the glaring problem: The purpose of the US zoning system was institutionalized racism to keep the "undesirables" out rather than anything having to do with development management. Once you realize that, all of the misfeatures (NIMBY, excessive permitting, sclerotic bureaucracy, public participation) make obvious sense.
Practically every zoning system would be better than that.
That's a big part of it. They also do zoning mostly at the federal level, meaning local opposition isn't relevant.
This is a fair question. In short: Permissive. If you want to learn more, talk with any LLM about it. There are a bazillion YouTube videos and blog posts discussing the matter to no end.
Here is a good YouTube video to you started: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5pPcV54kiQ
Sometimes permissive zoning laws don’t actually encourage positive urban development outcomes.
Example: Texas
Zoning has to both exist and be well-designed.
Texas zoning isn't nearly as permissive as Japan's. Setbacks are a big added requirement. Minimum parking requirements too though that is changing.
But it would not be legal to build japanese neighbourhoods in Texas.
Texas zoning is only “permissive” relative to other states. Relative to Japan it’s quite restrictive.
I bet you'd see natural market driven concentration around rail stations in Texas too, if they had a useful rail network.
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A great video on the zoning laws in Japan if anyone wants to nerd out on them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlwQ2Y4By0U
I don't think you can have Japanese zoning rules without Japanese culture. They have a lot of respect for other people and their property. Not always, but I just I can't think of many other places in the world where it would work.
Ingenious? It's a system that endorses hyper-capitalism through sub-9m² kyosho jutaku.
That isn't ingenious, it's battery farming.
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In New York, property values go up as they near transit lines. People want the option to use the public transit because it can dramatically improve access to the rest of the city.
Yeah, no surprise there. Landowners profit without doing anything when the government builds out public transport.
The problem is, the healthcare costs don't hit the parties responsible (i.e. governments and cheapskate landlords).
I live a 3-minutes walk from a busy train station in Switzerland and I don't even hear the trains. I also happened to live just next to it (my windows facing the rails) and that was horrible. So it's just a matter of some space and noise barriers.
> So it's just a matter of some space and noise barriers.
And guess what's often hotly contested. Noise barriers tend to draw complaints because they ruin the sightline, are either ugly from the start or end up being "decorated" not by good art but quick throw tags. And landlords are often too much penny-pinchers to install decent windows unless you legally require them to, which is often impossible for already constructed buildings. The landlords don't have to live with the noise after all, and in overheated housing markets people are forced to live in what they can get.
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Your citations do not back up your claims. For example [3] was talking about immobility and poverty, but not about living near noisy traffic infrastructure.
Yeah there are all these studies but then the end result is that the Japanese are healthier overall so when the studies and the reality have opposite results you gotta go with the reality.
That's physical health, and is to a large degree explainable by healthier food.
Mental health is atrocious across Asia.
> Fight densification wherever someone tries to push it.
What do you really mean? On that basis, we all would live on isolated farms on the prarie.
Humans are social animals that live in groups, just like other primates. Humans like living in dense cities so much that they pay far more for much smaller spaces in the most dense cities.
That doesn't make all density good but 'fight all densification' is not a real solution. When is it good and when bad? How much desnity in those situations? Those are some of the real questions.