Why Is Japan’s Housing Vacancy Rate So High? A History of Postwar Housing Policy

Beibei Zhang

Social Science Japan Journal, 2020, vol. 23, issue 1, 65-77

Abstract: This article provides an explanation for Japan’s current vacant housing crisis. While existing explanations usually ascribe the crisis to demographic factors or individual governmental policies, this article seeks to transcend those explanations by situating the vacant housing phenomenon within a broader social, economic, and historical context. Drawing on historical materials, the empirical analysis deciphers how the state has subordinated housing development to the overarching objective of economic growth through the manipulation of housing finance policies and land use planning regulations during the postwar period. The article argues that today’s vacant housing crisis is the result of the state’s pro-growth housing policies throughout the postwar period.

Keywords: housing vacancies; vacant housing; productivist welfare state; land use planning; finance; Japan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ssjj/jyz041 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:sscijp:v:23:y:2020:i:1:p:65-77.

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Japan Journal is currently edited by Kenneth Mori McElwain

More articles in Social Science Japan Journal from University of Tokyo and Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().