Yosuke Hirayama

The financialisation of the social project: Embedded liberalism, neoliberalism and home ownership

This paper argues that the relentless logic of commodification has served to undermine a key element of the social cement of contemporary capitalism: home ownership. In addressing this issue, the paper explores the development of the post war ‘social project’ of home ownership with particular reference to mature home ownership societies such as the USA, Japan, Britain and Australia. The paper then outlines the new fault lines and fractures which have emerged in post-crisis home ownership systems and the way in which a more vigorous, financialised private landlordism has emerged from the debris of the subprime meltdown. A key argument is that in a new and more intensified process of housing commodification, the social project promise of home ownership for a previous generation has shifted to a promise of private landlordism for current generations. In summary, the social project of Keynesian-embedded liberalism has been undermined by the economic project of neoliberalism.

Collapse and Reconstruction: Housing Recovery Policy in Kobe after the Hanshin Great Earthquake

This paper examines the housing recovery policy carried out in Kobe, a disaster city heavily damaged by the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 17 January 1995. The housing problems in the earthquake-hit city resulted not only from direct damage by the disaster. Urban restructuring, underway beforehand, had been generating socio-economic polarisation and geographical disparity in housing conditions. The earthquake caused especially heavy damage on the inner-city housing of low-income people and the elderly. Housing recovery progress in the post-disaster period has also been unequal. This paper shows the growing socio-economic and spatial polarisation. The framework of Japans housing policy is a two-tiered system. On the one hand, most people are encouraged to obtain their own houses by their own efforts on the market, whereas on the other, public housing as residual welfare housing is directly provided for those who are marginal to the market. The housing recovery policy followed this framework, and functioned to socio-spatially isolate low-income and/or elderly victims.

Baby Boomers, Baby Busters and the Lost Generation: Generational Fractures in Japan’s Homeowner Society

Over the past two decades housing pathways have become increasingly differentiated between generations, particularly in advanced societies dominated by owner-occupied tenure systems. Demographic transformations caused by aging and falling fertility rates, along with a more volatile economy and a neo-liberal reorientation of governance have combined to restructure housing conditions. Drawing on empirical research in Japan, this paper illustrates the social origins and impact of generation-based differentiations in housing patterns in that country. It considers the housing experiences of three cohorts: baby-boomers, baby-busters and the ‘lost generation’. The contrast of housing pathways between these generations in Japan illustrates the contemporary dynamics of housing and social processes in homeowner societies.

Home alone: the individualization of young, urban Japanese singles

Social life in Japan has been historically orientated towards hierarchical networks of social integration starting in the family home and extending to the neighborhood, company, and nation. In the postwar period, households and life courses were largely fixed, mediated by company society, a standard breadwinner family model and an ascent up an owner-occupied housing ladder. The bursting of the economic bubble two decades ago, and the subsequent ‘lost decade’, disrupted established flows into employment, family life, and owner-occupation. We examine recent restructuring of life courses around the home which has become characteristic of social changes and a medium of individualization. The home, once ingrained with notions of the eternal Japanese family, has become a conduit of atomization for younger generations who have experienced radical shifts in social and economic conditions. Since the 1990s numbers of single-only and couple-only households have ballooned while marriage and fertility rates have declined. Although homeownership norms have persisted, new patterns of renting and single living in the city, or remaining in the family home as a ‘parasite single’, are increasing. We consider how the reconstitution of ‘home’ under more insecure housing and employment conditions is embedded with the reshaping of life courses, housing pathways, and patterns of urban space and living.

Housing Pathway Divergence in Japan's Insecure Economy

The housing system in post-war Japan has consistently driven the growth of the owner-occupied housing sector, where many people have followed a conventional life-course in terms of ascending the housing ladder towards homeownership. Since the 1990s, however, a more insecure economy combined with the reorientation of housing and social policies has led to divergence in peoples housing pathways. The conservative nature of public policy has largely been maintained, advantaging middle-class family households in accessing homeownership. However, in response to economic stagnation and within the context of pervasive neo-liberalism, the government has moved sharply towards accentuating the role of the market in providing housing and mortgages. Neo-liberal policies have become more pronounced while conservative institutions have firmly been ingrained in Japans post-war society. Conventional middle-class families, protected by conservative policies in moving up the housing ladder, have maintained their relatively advantageous positions in the market economy. Neo-liberal policy has especially affected the housing conditions of specific groups who have been beyond the protection of conservative institutions, i.e. unmarried individuals, low-income households and those in unstable employment. The combination of conservative and neo-liberal approaches in policy practices has thus had strong diverging effects on peoples housing opportunities. This paper explores the fragmentation of housing paths in Japans insecure economy with particular reference to transformations in housing and social policies.

Housing Commodities, Context and Meaning: Transformations in Japan's Urban Condominium Sector:

Japans condominium sector expanded rapidly along with post-war urbanisation and high-speed economic growth. However, the bursting of the bubble economy in the 1990s undermined land and housing markets. Capital losses on condominiums have been disproportionate, especially in cases of older, smaller or non-centrally located condominiums. This analysis incorporates socio-cultural elements in explaining emerging patterns of fragmentation among homeowners and property values. It illustrates relationships between the meaning of housing commodities and the context of indigenous production and consumption processes in urban Japan. The paper specifically draws upon data from interviews with Japanese homeowners to illustrate the significance of values and perceptions in the modern condominium sector and their relationship to changing socioeconomic conditions.

Housing conditions and affordability in Japan

Abstract Housing in Japan is of interest as an example of how improvements in living conditions have not kept pace with national economic growth. This paper describes basic housing conditions in Japan and offers an assessment of them against the background of progress over time and within the context of housing conditions in several Western countries. Housing affordability is a growing problem, particularly for population groups that are marginal to the housing market. We discuss the emerging affordability crisis for renters and owners within the broader context of housing provision and review responses to it. The conclusion comments on likely future developments.

Individualisation and familisation in Japan's home-owning democracy

Japans post-war housing system has been dominated by family-owned housing. However, the centrality of family home ownership has declined since the 1990s. Housing careers and family formation patterns have diverged leading to the re-organisation of boundaries separating owning and renting. Using Japan as a focus, this paper explores the role of individualisation and familisation in transforming homeowner societies. On one hand, the individualisation of younger generations in Japan has encouraged a notable increase in one-person households living in private rented housing. On the other hand, a growing number of young households have purchased houses with assistance from their parents. This has been interpreted as an intergenerational familisation of access to home ownership. There is also an increasing number of unmarried adults living in their parents’ homes, which reflects the individualisation of younger cohorts and simultaneously the familisation of adult childrens early housing careers. Moreover, it has recently been pointed out that Japans system of extended family households and the related practice of transferring family properties across generations, has not declined. This paper argues that individualisation and familisation are combining to reorganise the ‘edges’ of home ownership, by helping determine who can enter owner-occupied housing sectors, and who is excluded.

Selling the Tokyo Sky: Urban Regeneration and Luxury Housing

In response to the intensification of international intercity competition, the Japanese government has energetically implemented urban regeneration as a key policy. This has led to a noticeable increase in super-high-rise condominium blocks in the central and waterfront areas of Tokyo with expensive luxury housing on the top floors. Nevertheless, the policy of expanding booms in the housing market in Tokyo cannot necessarily be seen as sustainable but rather appears to be fragile. Transnational housing investment by the wealthy is particularly capricious and subject to relentless changes in economic climates. Moreover, within the context of Japan’s prolonged stagnation, residential properties in the suburbs have continuously been devaluated while housing investment has been intensified in the city centre, increasingly leading to spatial fragmentation.

Neoliberalism and Low-income Housing in Japan

Over the past three decades, neoliberalism has been pervasive and even normative in reorganizing housing systems, encouraging a decline in low-income housing. However, the way in which neoliberal prescriptions have impacted on housing processes has not necessarily been the same but has rather differed according to the indigenous social, economic, political, and institutional contexts of particular countries. In the case of Japan, neoliberalization has effectively combined with a traditionally residualized public housing to affect housing circumstances surrounding low-income people. This article explores transformations in low-income housing in Japan to demonstrate the importance of specific housing contexts in particular societies, in terms of looking at the impact neoliberalism has had on housing processes.