
Tokyo proves that housing shortages are a political choice - sampo
https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/tokyo-proves-housing-shortages-are-political-choice-4623
======
hackermailman
Japanese also don't consider housing to be equity or investment, it
depreciates in value every year. A house is just a house not something to
speculate on or store money in. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-
economy-land/japan-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-economy-
land/japan-average-land-prices-rise-for-1st-time-in-27-years-government-
survey-idUSKCN1LY10J)

~~~
zizee
I believe this is partly a cultural artifact of Japan being earthquake prone.
The severity and frequency of earthquakes used to make it difficult to build
housing that would last.

~~~
fiblye
People are downvoting you, but everyone I know here in Japan has told me this.

It's not that they're planning for complete annihilation from a massive
earthquake, but there's bound to be some wear and tear when a relatively large
one strikes every few years. Compound that with the absurd humidity and mold
problem endemic to pretty much all of coastal Asia (trying to keep your house
mold-free is a losing battle after a certain point and it's unavoidable) and
the cost and effort of repairs far outweighs the ease of just tearing it down
and rebuilding.

In the west, a 20 year old house is considered brand new. In Japan, 20 years
old is bordering on junk territory. 30 years is junk and not worth the effort
of repairs. You can search online and find 40 year old houses basically
selling for pocket change since they're basically considered moldy death traps
on the verge of collapse.

Now, though, Western-style homes built to withstand earthquakes are becoming
common and they're expected to be a slightly better investment. How these
houses fair against mold is something I'm not sure of.

A commenter below mentioned spirits accumulating in a house, but I've never
heard of such a thing and it reeks of mysterious orientalism. But most people
_won 't_ buy a house that someone committed suicide in or was murdered in.
"Jikenya" (incident homes) are marked as such and sell for drastically reduced
prices, if they can sell them at all.

~~~
throw0101a
> Compound that with the absurd humidity and mold problem endemic to pretty
> much all of coastal Asia (trying to keep your house mold-free is a losing
> battle after a certain point and it's unavoidable) and the cost and effort
> of repairs far outweighs the ease of just tearing it down and rebuilding.

Worse than, say, the US South? Just make sure you have air and vapour
tightness, with a good whole-house dehumidifier and you should be set.

Good building (science) channel from builder in Austin, TX, where humidity is
a thing:

* [https://www.youtube.com/user/MattRisinger/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/MattRisinger/videos)

~~~
fiblye
It’s not just the inside that molds, but the outside. Going to an even more
humid place like Hong Kong or Taiwan, you’ll see most buildings, bridges,
signs, and virtually everything covered in a permanent cake of black mold.

It’s bad around the US south, but it’s really far worse in Asia. Few
structures are considered permanent.

~~~
jdc
_Few structures are considered permanent._

Not sure if this is meant as hyperbole, how do you explain Japanese buildings
built during the 7th century still standing today?

~~~
njepa
They are reconstructed.

[https://blog.gaijinpot.com/problem-with-wooden-buildings-
in-...](https://blog.gaijinpot.com/problem-with-wooden-buildings-in-japan/)

------
purplezooey
Look at this. From the article it says Tokyo started 110,000 houses annually
per year since 2003.

Population of Tokyo: ~9M.

Population of the Bay Area: ~7M.

The BA starts around 11,500 houses per year. Roughly similar in population --
_a tenth_ of the housing being built. Wtf.

~~~
Shivetya
because it is wholly under the domain of politics in the Bay Area. Most if not
all special interest groups are linked back to either those in office or their
party. the usual method is to form groups where you friends and family get
nice part time advisement jobs pulling down 100k or more; we recently had a
candidate in my state who part timed a get out to vote PAC for even more.

There have been many stories posted here and elsewhere how nearly every
attempt to build housing is derailed, usually under the guise of setting aside
for "affordable housing", followed by union workers only, followed by
environmental concern; one was defeated for adding a few hours of shade to
twenty percent of a play area/park of a school!; to finally architectural
concerns because why would we want to impose on history of buildings barely a
hundred years old. It comes down to money for politicians and those already
there not wanting "those people" living among them.

Heck in my local metro area they have squads to clear out the homeless and
undesirables every time a convention or big game comes in; a town which has
been blue for most all this century and most of the previous. One where you
will hear the politicians stamp their feet about how unfair it is and if only
they had more power and money they could fix it, yet they never have. Instead
a new stadium displaced an older black church, go figure.

~~~
codedokode
> to finally architectural concerns because why would we want to impose on
> history of buildings barely a hundred years old.

On the other hand, why do people need to build a new, ugly modern high-rise
buildings in historical parts of the city? Is there not enough of other land?

Historical parts better stay historical forever and there should be no new
buildings, I think. Because no tourist will ever come to see modern, ugly
concrete buildings.

~~~
solidsnack9000
There can't be that many historic buildings in a city that burned to the
ground in 1906, yet somehow we have historic auto-body shops, historic bars,
historic music halls converted to comedy clubs, historic crab restaurants...

~~~
mactrey
[https://i.redd.it/i3ndx7dhc5x21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/i3ndx7dhc5x21.jpg)

Historic, historic, architecturally beautiful, indescribably beautiful San
Francisco...

~~~
meddlepal
Kind of a waste of such a nice street grid for such low density housing.

~~~
rayiner
Waste of a lovely bayside location. Imagine how much better that water view
would look contrasted against modern glass and steel skyscrapers:
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/si-interactive/prod/ai-cio-
com/wp-c...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/si-interactive/prod/ai-cio-com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/05082506/iStock-511665488.jpg).

~~~
solidsnack9000
It could even be nice with two or three story buildings.

------
Udik
I loved the beginning of a recent article on Japan on the London Review of
Books:

"One can fly to Japan from anywhere, but from Japan one can only fly to the
Third World, and it hardly matters whether one lands in Kinshasa, London, New
York or Zurich: they are all places where one must be constantly watchful and
distrustful, where one cannot leave a suitcase unattended even for ten
minutes, where women strolling home through town at 3 a.m. are deemed
imprudent, where the universal business model is not to underpromise and
overdeliver but if anything the other way round, where city streets are
clogged at rush hour because municipal authorities mysteriously fail to
provide ubiquitous, fast and comfortable public transport, where shops need
watchful staff or cameras against thieving customers, and where one cannot
even get beer and liquor from vending machines that require no protection from
vandalism."

[https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n07/edward-luttwak/friendly-
relati...](https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n07/edward-luttwak/friendly-relations)

If it's true, it sounds like there are a lot of "political choices" going in
on in Japan that are completely unknown to the rest of the world.

------
andy_ppp
I really hate this trope that is wheeled out about Japanese accomodation; the
flats that people talk about would be considered too small to live in by
western standards. Most of them seem to be made of horrendous cheap plastic
prefab; you get a corridor with a kitchen in it, a mezzanine to sleep on above
said corridor that is too small to _sit_ upright, a 7'x'7 living area and a
bathroom (including toilet) that is about 2ft x 2ft.

For this delight there are people being charged $1000 per month or more in
rent.

Add in the fact that Japanese have an extremely different relationship to
property culterally (and due to earth quake fears) means propeerties are often
knocked down and rebuilt (the article notes this - 600000 new homes for an
ageing population seems like most of those are going to immigrants).

A lot of people in Europe prefer the shared living, and it is better use of
resources - you only need one bathroom/one living room per 3 people and those
can be MUCH nicer than these micro appartments.

London and the west also have different cultural values about building high
rise property and overlooking neighbours. It's fine that Japan doesn't mind a
sky scraper being built overshadowing their homes but for Londoners or
elsewhere this is simply unacceptable to suggest we can change our whole
culture to Japanese values and magically solve housing problems.

~~~
strken
I wish that regulators would stop assuming that "cultural values" are more
important to me than paying half as much rent, and that I shouldn't be allowed
to live in a cheap studio with a built in mezzanine.

~~~
andy_ppp
They aren't, there are no regulations on this. I hope you get what you wish
for.

~~~
strken
There are usually quite a lot of regulations on dwellings, often including
room size, layout, window placement, ceiling height, etc.

The specific "guidelines" for places I've lived are:

[https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/...](https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/80994/Apartment-
Design-Guidelines-for-Victoria_August-2017.pdf)

[http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residenti...](http://default.sfplanning.org/publications_reports/residential_design_guidelines.pdf)

The San Francisco guidelines are particularly onerous, but the Victorian
guidelines still set e.g. minimum sizes for bedrooms and living areas.

------
csomar
I was in Tokyo last month. I think the city is under-estimated and not getting
the praise that it deserves. It is true that you get less square meters in
Tokyo, but the Japanese makes it up by quality, utility and accessibility.

Quality: Having stayed in relatively cheap locations, you get much better
quality (especially clean) comparing to what you'd get if you were in New
York, Hong Kong or "Paris".

Technology: Japanese care about technology and convenience. Toilets and
showers are one example. Being able to store your luggage in several stations.
Automated doors for practically any store. Small details that add up.

Accessible: There is a great transit system that makes the whole place very
accessible. Even the most remote places are still accessible by train. The
train stations are not the most modern in the world but at least smell good
enough.

~~~
magnetic
Why did you use double quotes around Paris?

------
burlesona
> What Japan’s inexpensive homes and its alternative policy approach prove is
> that the housing shortage in British cities is not inevitable. Housing does
> not have to be expensive in prosperous cities. The housing shortage is
> something we have chosen to experience and can choose to change if we want
> to.

Written for Britain, but this could be applied universally.

~~~
njepa
It is also meaningless. Yes, if you get to choose what to do, you can do
whatever you want. But you don't, so affordable housing remains an unsolved
issue in most places. Things haven't changed and aren't changing just because
people become convinced otherwise.

~~~
cheriot
There's a lot of people (in the US at least) that see appreciating property
values as inevitable. Combined with views associating dense housing with urban
ghettos from the 80s, it's one of the reasons people think building more
houses won't make them more affordable.

~~~
ryl00
That's weird. Don't we get enough stories about Rust Belt economic hardship
and Detroit real estate horror stories to know that property values don't
always go up? Have we already forgotten 2008?

~~~
yxhuvud
But it don't have to take a depression to create sinking house prices. In
Sweden we had shrinking house prices between 1931 to 1981, with only three
years (right after the war) when prices increased. The same period is the most
economically successful period we ever had.

Why? Because politicians built a shitton of houses (and tore down a lot of
crappy housing too). Nowadays people here too think prices always go up, not
realizing it is a political choice. It may very well be the right choice, but
so many doesn't even understand it is a choice in the first place.

~~~
njepa
Right, but similar interventions are also completely unthinkable today. Which
is why Stockholm have some of the most expensive property in Europe.

------
BurningFrog
In a less exotic location, Houston proves the same.

~~~
pascalxus
Houston and Chicago put the bay area to shame with populations over 2 million,
high growth and super cost effective housing. The secret is no zoning laws in
Houston

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Topography also plays a role, Houston and Chicago can grow outward forever,
something that pesky hills and water get in the way of in the Bay Area.

------
WillPostForFood
Tokyo proves you need tremendous investment in infrastructure, not just
unleashing developers to build without restriction.

~~~
CydeWeys
Most (if not all?) of the transit in Tokyo is private. When you build densely
enough, transit becomes highly profitable on its own, and someone will do it.

~~~
njepa
They are private in ways specific to Japan that, what I know, you pretty much
won't find anywhere else.

~~~
solidsnack9000
Public-private partnership is not so "specific to Japan". The transit/retail
connection is definitely a uniquely bright idea but it's something that many
other jurisdictions could emulate.

~~~
njepa
Having that work is specific to Japan. If there is a single example of someone
managing to do that successfully, especially with multiple companies, I would
like to hear about it. Transit/retail or rail plus property is used in other
places, like Hong Kong, but with government owned operators.

[https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-
inf...](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/capital-projects-and-
infrastructure/our-insights/the-rail-plus-property-model)

------
sbenitoj
It’s amazing that this even needs to be published — no study is needed to
prove the laws of supply and demand that have been known and obvious for
centuries.

~~~
klyrs
In the neighboring cities of Vancouver, the "known and obvious" laws are
false. We have developers building skyscrapers full of condos which are
selling for 500k-2M for a 1 bedroom. They're largely vacant because they're
bought as investment properties. The ultra-rich can afford these places, but
don't need to sleep in them. The demand isn't just people who need a place to
stay, and rental prices are absurdly high.

We've got a new tax in Vancouver that's helping: the empty homes tax. But
that's only Vancouver and not the outlying area.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
They aren't false. There just hasn't been sufficient building allowed to take
up the slack. If Vancouver took a page from Wizards of the Coast's tactics,
prices would eventually go down. Namely: you have to convince speculators that
you are willing to build (issue cards) until the value of speculative assets
falls to the livable price for everyone else. If they were willing to allow
unlimited building until the prices fell to the desired level, eventually
speculators would realize that Vancouver property is a terrible bet.

Actually the presence of these investors is just a reflection of Vancouver's
own unwillingness to allow said amount of building. If the speculators thought
there was any chance of them building enough to meet demand, they would no
longer view housing in Vancouver as a safe investment. So it's really a self-
inflicted wound, not a violation of the laws of supply and demand.

That being said, an empty home tax does not seem like a bad supplemental
approach. However, even assuming the tax is perfectly effective, if the
population inflows outpace building, prices will continue to rise. And I would
guess that is likely to be the case. The tax is a band-aid, but the problem
needs stitches and cyanoacrylate.

~~~
klyrs
The cities are all extremely friendly to developers (our "affordable housing"
is $1700/mo for a 1-bdrm and developers are only required to build a small
fraction of "affordable" units). I'm not sure how familiar you are with the
area, but it doesn't seem like anybody is holding back on new development
except for some weak and failing anti-gentrification efforts. Another
significant factor in our local economy is a massive amount of money
laundering, perhaps billions of dollars worth. It's been washed in real estate
-- and laundry is one place where supply and demand break down: losses are
acceptable.

What we're seeing is a huge demand for apartments, at rates that property
owners can't afford, given the massively inflated value (hence tax). And
homeowners (the upper-middle class), sensibly, don't want to see the market
crash. So they don't actually want the government to act: new homeowners fear
losing half of their investment. It's a vexatious problem all around

~~~
tormeh
Looked up Vancouver ion Google Maps. Looks like mostly single houses. That
needs to go if you want low house prices.

~~~
sgt101
Yes, this. Six story 2x apartments per story + shared community space per 4
blocks = 48 units vs 4 units. The density also supports and drives community
resources like shops, pubs, doctors and schools and makes public transport
feasible. No need for 20 floor monsters.

------
rb808
If you restricted London to 1% foreign born people you wouldn't see a housing
shortage either - currently 37% of London's population was born outside of the
country. The article quickly dismissed that political choice, but it seems
more relevant to me.

Being an immigrant myself I'm not anti-immigrant, but it is important for
things like housing policy.

~~~
ramraj07
So you think Tokyo is less than 1% foreign born?

~~~
myrandomcomment
486K as of 2017. So around ~3%

[http://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/Foreign_Population_by_Nat...](http://nbakki.hatenablog.com/entry/Foreign_Population_by_Nationality_in_Tokyo_as_of_2017)

------
b212
How the heck can they deliver so many flats? Poland with 30% of Japan’s
population builds roughly 5 times less houses per year and trust me we’re
building new blocks literally everywhere. Yet flats are getting much more
expensive every year, it’s cheaper for Londoners to buy flats in London than
for Poles to get something in Warsaw. I guess what works for Japan won’t work
for European Union as folks from Germany, the UK or France can buy Greek,
Bulgarian or Polish flats easily...

~~~
jaredklewis
> How the heck can they deliver so many flats?

> ...

> I guess what works for Japan won’t work for European Union as folks from
> Germany, the UK or France can buy Greek, Bulgarian or Polish flats easily...

This confuses me. Af first, you are impressed by the fast rate of construction
in Japan and affordable prices in Tokyo. From there, it seems reasonable to
speculate that if Poland increased residential construction to be more in line
with that of Japan (proportional to population), Poland might also see a
reduction in prices.

But you instead immediately jump to the conclusion that it wouldn't work
because Poland is in Europe. Japan's system works well enough with a
population of 125 million. Any particular reason it couldn't scale to support
the 500 million in Europe?

If foreigners are eager to buy up Polish housing, this is only a problem if
Polish housing is scarce. If instead, Poland increases construction until it
has a surplus of housing, housing becomes just another export that can be sold
at a profit, injecting money into the Polish economy.

So why wouldn't it be in Poland's interest to follow the Japanese model?

------
sgt101
Think speak in the article :"Tokyo reformed its green belt twice" in fact
Tokyo did not reform its green belt, it abandoned it.

Also, yes, it is good if single people can make the choice to live
independently, but a far larger problem in my mind is that families are driven
either into poverty or out of London. The reform that I would seek is that
apartments should have three bedrooms, this would create desirable family
homes as well as flexible share candidates.

~~~
lopmotr
What makes you think the market won't provide those 3 bedroom apartments? Why
should those details be dictated? Isn't the the whole problem causing housing
shortages in the first place - local government deciding how much luxury
everybody must have, no matter how much they don't want it? Whenever there's a
housing shortage, people start wanting to impose even more restrictions
instead of allowing the people living there to drive the market with what they
really want.

~~~
sgt101
The market is providing 2 beds (one big, one small) because these are
acceptable to young professional couples. When babies come (which is often
what happens) then the apartment works for a short time, but then confronts
the couple with a challenge. The second bed is inadequate, and if the babies
are of different sexes then the law dictates that they can't share the room
past 9(?) years old.

This causes the couple to seek a house (there are no 3 bed apartments) houses
are very inefficient in terms of footprint, and affordability means that most
young couples end up commuting.

Government has a role because developers just building things mean that the
costs of the development are unanticipated and then later socialised as
collateral damage. On the other hand if government manages development then
the appropriate stock with appropriate infrastructure (doctors, schools,
shops, transport) can be provided at the time and the cost socialised in the
transaction and managed. This is economically much more efficient.

------
dhfromkorea
I am not convinced. The attribution to the simple zoning system is surely not
a complete proof, if any. Consider a counter-example: South Korea that has a
very similar zoning system. Yet the housing price around Seoul soared roughly
by 60% the past 3 years---so did rents (to a smaller but still significant
rate). All the while the apartments supply has been at record high in 10
years. That zoning policy may be a factor but clearly not sufficient.

~~~
cheriot
> All the while the apartments supply has been at record high in 10 years.

Has the number of jobs increased? Housing needs to be built in proportion to
office/factory/commercial space in order to balance supply and demand.

~~~
dhfromkorea
The employment rate has increased by somewhat unnoticeable amount over the
past 10 years [1]. The increased housing supply is mostly due to cost factors
(tax breaks from the previous administrations, low interest rate) and the
demand due to decline of small cities (demand gets concentrated around Seoul,
the capital city; people buy houses around Seoul while living far away in
another place on rent). As for the office/factory/commercial space, there has
been a sharp increase in supply, and the vacancy rate (spaces that cannot find
tenants) is 10-20% in major cities. Folks still buy buildings with a yield of
2.5-4% because the interest rate is so low. I am currently based in Cambridge,
Boston. There are empty stores that have been looking for tenants for more
than a year.

[1]: [http://www.index.go.kr/unify/idx-
info.do?idxCd=4013](http://www.index.go.kr/unify/idx-info.do?idxCd=4013)

------
sytelus
This is bit overblown article. Certainly bad zoning laws can help inflate
prices and there are several other factors like investors using real-estate
for investment. However the major cause of real-estate price increase over
long term is plain and simple: heavy urbanization of entire world. If you look
at graph of population moving to urban centers over centuries it looks like
literally almost vertical line in recent decades [1]. I'd heard that 90% of
Earth's population is concentrated around just 40 urban centers! The real-
estate in rural area has remained same or took nose dive while in urban areas
it keeps going up.

Interesting question is how fat this trend will keep going? My guess is that
this is black-hole effect, a larger city attracts even larger population
towards it. Japan has recently became outlier because of economic issue as
well as population decline.

[1]
[https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization](https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization)

------
crimsonalucard
Kind of unrelated but also relevant. What is it like working as a software
engineer in Japan vs. say San Francisco? How's the pay? The stress?

San Francisco is a filthy city but would are software engineers happier in
that city or would they be in Tokyo?

------
thefounder
The difference here is that London has a lot of foreign and domestic real
estate "investors" that I'm pretty sure won't be happy with affordable housing
for everyone.

Who wants London's property market to crash?

~~~
TaylorAlexander
“Who wants London's property market to crash?”

People who value housing as a place to sleep rather than a financial
investment.

~~~
Aeolun
This should be about 100% of the voters right?

~~~
inflatableDodo
In the UK, since the early 1980's, it has been considered political suicide by
a succession of both conservative and labour governments to not give money to
the middle classes in the form of large increases in the value of their homes.
This is one of the main reasons we have built about half as many houses as
Canada since 1980, while having around twice the population.

~~~
ZeroFries
Wouldn't this only work as a method of increasing middle class wealth if you
owned 2+ properties? Otherwise, you have to live somewhere. You can't sell
your house and unlock that wealth increase without spending it all on the next
place to live.

~~~
inflatableDodo
People became obsessed with their home valuation. How much more money your
house was worth since you bought it became one of the main methods of social
boasting for decades, regardless of whether you were actually able to really
profit from any of it.

------
amai
The number of houses built is not the best metric. How many square meters of
housing are build every year?

------
lovemenot
Not mentioned in the article, but also significant is that in the last decade
or so, commercial property developers have been required to provide housing
too.

We can see many successful examples of mixed-use buildings in predominantly
commercial districts such as Shinjuku and Roppongi.

~~~
Danieru
That is not a requirement but rather an innovation first done by Mori Tower
about thirty years ago.

Most large sky scrappers are still pure office towers. The mixed use
developments are rare and lifestyle branded.

------
pacifika
Uk is not London

------
tehjoker
Just a reminder that land is a limited natural resource that does not have a
monetary value assigned to it except by political choice.

We could assign zero dollar value to land and allocate it democratically based
on utility to the public and with an eye to preserving the environment.
Allowing a market in land doesn't allocate it to the best uses (why do we have
fancy hotels on the best real estate when there are homeless people?), just to
the purposes of the people with the most money. If the people that own the
construction equipment refuse to build when land is worth less, the public
should step in and do it.

For the liberals out there, if we did this a certain person would not be
president and the country would be a better, more egalitarian place. Imagine
having nearly everything you pay in rent back in your pocket instead of being
progressively squeezed more and more each year and spied on (given the
increasing installation of monitoring equipment that you do not control).

If we could ban owning properties that you do not personally use, imagine how
that would change the composition of cities. Gentrification would be vastly
reduced. Shops, community centers, and other things that people love wouldn't
get kicked out of town because the rent always increases.

That would be revolutionary.

~~~
karamazov
Do you not consider yourself a liberal? You’re proposing a socialist
redistribution of land, which is far to the left of any major political party.

(I’m pointing out an inconsistency in your political labeling, not commenting
on your suggestion.)

~~~
jtr1
Real socialists very much distinguish themselves from liberals. If the
labeling seems inconsistent, it's likely because the spectrum of American
politics is so narrow the two get collapsed into each other. Socialist
politics have been in a state of almost total collapse over the past 50 years,
and most Americans are unfamiliar with its main tenets.

Having spent a bit of time trying to understand this band of the spectrum,
here's my very rough mental model. Regarding economics, you can think of the
left continuum as moving roughly from liberal -> progressive -> social
democrat -> socialist -> communist.

* Liberals pretty much favor what you might call free markets, with some regulations against the worst excesses (pollution, fraud, etc).

* Progressives tend to favor a more Keynesian approach, with the government stepping in to try and tone down the amplitude of the boom/bust cycle, pursuing aggressive antitrust action, etc (think Elizabeth Warren).

* Social Democrats believe that capitalism fundamentally produces inequality, but also wealth, so to maintain social cohesion, markets have to be balanced with a strong welfare state, or safety nets (Sanders circa present day probably fits here).

* Socialists believe that capitalism is an inherently exploitative distribution of _ownership_ where an elite social class owns most of the necessities like housing, hospitals, factories, etc.[1] Socialists believe that that ownership is the result of workers being forced into a bad deal: having to sell their labor in exchange for access to those necessities, and that the remedy is for those workers to unite to wrest those necessities back from the owning class.

* Communists accept the same principles as socialists, but believe that the end goal for politics should be a society where all resources are collectively owned and distributed on the basis of need. Authoritarian communists believe that a strong centralized government is needed to make this happen (think Stalin or Mao), and that once the redistribution happens, that government will fade out of necessity. On the other hand, libertarian communists (also known as anarchists) believe that centralizing state power will only reproduce the exploitation of a capitalism under different owners.

[1] Not all socialists oppose markets, some think they're great, but that
individual firms should be collectively owned by their employees, rather than
external shareholders.

~~~
mparramon
Amazing, down to the point explanation. Thanks a lot!

------
codedokode
I am surprised to read that houses in Japan are "inexpensive". They are very
expensive, as is everything in Japan. Also I think there might be differences
because the climate is relatively warm, the houses don't have central heating,
which reduces the costs.

The prices in London are high probably because there are lot of rich people,
lot of immigrants and therefore high demand for housing.

~~~
joshdance
and those who live in London doesn't allow enough houses to be build to lower
the cost?

~~~
sgt101
The planning laws and social/physical infrastructure mitigate against
initiatives and changes that would reduce the costs. One fundamental is that
the rail gauge in the UK was the first one created, and this meant that
tunnels and bridges were built unambitiously, consequentially there are no
double decker trains in the UK. If there were double decker trains on the
London commute lines London accommodation prices would be significantly
reduced (I believe). That's just one small example of the complex confluence
of issues that have driven the market in one direction though.

Everyone should remember that 60 years ago London housing was very poor as
well as relatively expensive (although far more attainable). That's important
as it shows that things can and will change over time in the market. We need
to think about this because some of the reforms suggested will fundamentally
alter the physical geography of the city in ways that will have consequences
100's of years into the future. Architects and planners have a very bad track
record with respect to these alterations, for example see Birmingham,
Portsmouth, Ipswich, Reading in contrast to Manchester, Brighton and Bristol
where history has run differently (Bath is a really good story - the 60's got
stopped in its tracks there).

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njepa
I never understood this argument. Japan is one of the most different places
relative to everywhere else. That you can't find a more familiar example
almost becomes a counter argument. There is something about housing markets
that makes people feel like their city is somehow unique and if they could
just fix their local problem everything would be great. While pretty much
every in demand major city in the world is having the same problems.

