Presently Japan is facing a novel housing problem as too many houses are their but not enough people.
According to the media reports, ‘As the country struggles with the ever-declining population, the number of vacant houses in Japan has increased to an all-time high of nine million’.
Abandoned houses in Japan are known as ‘Akiya’ houses, which refer to a house located in a rural area, and in derelict condition. However, that is no longer true. Most of the Akiya houses are located in major Japanese cities like Tokyo and Kyoto.
Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer at the Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba, said that this is a symptom of Japan’s population decline. Hall added, ‘It’s not really a problem of building too many houses but a problem of not having enough people’.
‘14% of all residential properties in the nation are vacant’, as per the data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications All of these are not Akiya or ruins, but comprise of properties vacant for a variety of reasons: they’re somebody’s second home, owners moved abroad, etc.
Some houses are without owners because of poor record-keeping but the local authorities don’t know who the owner is. A growing trend on social media shows people, mainly foreigners, scooping up these Akiya properties and renovating them. However, as per Hall, that is not as easy as it seems.
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