
Tokyo's suburban housing became vast ghettoes for the old - never-the-bride
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/jun/11/how-tokyo-suburban-housing-blocks-became-ghettoes-for-the-old
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Tiktaalik
Really interesting article.

> _... it also set strict requirements for younger people who lived there: if
> your income exceeded a certain threshold, you would be evicted. If you
> refused, you were charged rent – at potentially up to twice the market rate,
> depending on your income._

 _The goal was to make public housing a safety net for elderly, low-income and
socially vulnerable people. The effect, however, has been to make social
housing off-limits for most people: eligibility fell from 80% of households in
1951 to 25% after 1996._

 _And it has turned public housing into a kind of ghetto for poor and elderly
people who rely on pensions and can’t afford private rents._

In Canada it is often controversial when upper middle class people are found
to be living in affordable coops and anti-poverty activists, in an
understandable effort to create as much low income housing as possible, often
call for wholly low income housing projects instead of having buildings with
mixed incomes. This article suggests at the flawed outcome from overly means
testing benefits.

~~~
dalbasal
I increasingly think that for social safety nets to work well, they need to be
universalized, if possible.

Otherwise we get welfare traps, ghettoisation or just poor quality (like buses
in places where only the poor use em). It doesn't mean everyone has to use it,
just that they can. This is common sense in services like health or education,
where we're used to it.

~~~
smallnamespace
We already have a good solution to avoid ghettoisation or traps called
progressive taxation.

However, it doesn't go far enough because the tax rate doesn't take benefits
into account, so even though you're getting >$0.80 of every dollar earned,
after adjusting for benefits it may instead be $0.20 or even negative. The
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is an especially large contributor to this
situation [1].

To avoid a trap, marginal income after taxes and benefits should start high
and fall monotonically. It should probably also be concave up (the amount of
income to bump you into the next 'adjusted tax' bracket gets bigger and
bigger).

[1]
[https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publicati...](https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-
pdfs/412722-How-Marginal-Tax-Rates-Affect-Families-at-Various-Levels-of-
Poverty.PDF) (page 767, Figure 2)

~~~
freewilly1040
The issue of capital gains getting preferential tax treatment over wage labor
is a much bigger problem than any lack of benefits taxes.

~~~
xchaotic
Why? It's just artificial money, what's the concrete negative impact? (I
probably agree, I just think it needs to be concrete and justified)

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npunt
In everything from technology to culture to aging, Japan seems to be a portent
for things yet to happen in the west.

We tend to view suburbs as these static places that serve a particular purpose
for primarily families and where nothing changes. But in fact suburbs are
starting to transform into de facto retirement communities as boomers exit the
workforce, due in large part to incentives from certain laws that keep them
there and prevent development (no comment on who created those laws). One
clear example is schools in Cupertino are closing due to declining enrollment
- something that certainly doesn't fit the conception of a suburb being a
place where families are raised.

~~~
01100011
Your comment made me think of how astonished I was at the numbers of elderly
in the South Bay when I relocated here. You'd think those folks would have
cashed out and moved to a tax friendly state with better weather, but for some
reason they've stayed put.

~~~
FreedomToCreate
They have stayed put because there is no where with better weather

~~~
01100011
As someone over the hill, I can confirm that the older I get, the more heat
feels good. There's a reason why Arizona is full of retirees. The cold, humid
air in the bay area, especially during winter, is not good for an old body.
Now obviously heat can kill the elderly, but if someone cashed out their bay
area home and moved, they'd have more than enough money to buy a nice place
and run the air conditioner whenever they like.

If nothing else, I'd figure they'd move to LA for even better weather and
cheaper rent. That doesn't help with the tax situation, but it's something.

Maybe they're here for the family connections, but it seems less and less
likely to be the case given the exodus of longtime residents from the area.

If they don't own a house, I can't see how they'd manage to stay. Renting
around here on a fixed income must be brutal.

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Tiktaalik
The future of NA suburbs as well.

Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and not
legally allowed to drive anymore.

I guess one can hope that autonomous cars will finally appear to bail one out
of this predicament, but I'll personally be setting myself up to retire in a
place where everything I need is a short walk or wheelchair roll away.

~~~
paulcole
> Have fun living in the car dependent sprawling suburbs when you're 80 and
> not legally allowed to drive anymore.

You're describing Florida and they drive anyways.

~~~
reustle
They drive golf carts*

I've been to a couple golf cart communities in Florida and they are actually
pretty cool for retirement

~~~
amyjess
My dad lives in a 55+ community in Nevada, and they have golf carts too.
There's even a sign when you enter the development warning you that golf carts
are permitted on the roads.

Unlike a lot of retirement communities, it looks like just another suburban
housing development. The only hint that it's different, aside from the golf
carts, is that every single house is one-story in order to accommodate people
who can't (easily) climb stairs.

~~~
yellowapple
Sounds vaguely like the Somersett neighborhood in Reno (though I don't recall
if it's entirely 55+; there are some kid-friendly amenities, which suggests
that families with kids are allowed to live in at least some parts, but for
some reason I remember it being mostly retirees).

~~~
amyjess
Nope, it's Sun City Summerlin in Vegas. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if
the formula is common.

As for their age policies, from what I remember of my dad telling me, only one
resident of each house has to be 55+, but nobody under 19 is allowed to live
there permanently (...and I just checked their Wikipedia article, and it
confirms it). So no kid-friendly stuff there, but there are some younger
people living with older relatives.

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ilamont
Several of the examples in the article hinted at familial estrangement, which
makes things much worse.

I lived in Taiwan, which also has a stagnant birth rate (only 181,606 births
last year,
[https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3611847](https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3611847))
and a decades-long trend for young people to migrate to the large cities, or
go to China to try their fortunes there.

But there is also a strong tradition of multi-generational households and
traditions/holidays that emphasize family relations or filial piety, Lunar New
Year being the most obvious. Certainly, family strife exists (and can be
exacerbated if people are forced to live together) and many seniors live
alone, but I think because of the cultural emphasis on familial contact, there
is also a level of contact and awareness that can mitigate the extreme
situations described in the article. Being smaller also helps (most cities on
the island are no more than two or three hours away by high-speed rail).

In recent decades, there has also been a trend to legally allow foreign
caregivers (mostly Filipinos and Indonesians) for people aged 85 and up, and
tacitly allow for foreign caregivers for younger seniors and wealthy families.
I am not sure how Taiwan's national health system covers those costs, or if
the elderly poor can afford them.

Does Japan have any similar system of allowing foreign caregivers?

~~~
gyc
> Several of the examples in the article hinted at familial estrangement,
> which makes things much worse.

Yes as somebody from a Taiwanese family that also really stuck out from the
article. The daughter in Tokyo only seeing the father once a year? Seems like
there are deeper problems there.

~~~
sjg007
Lol.. I see my mom like once every 3 years and my Dad maybe once year. This is
in America. With work and kids and living in different states and countries it
financially impossible to get everyone together. I hardly saw my grandparents
too so it’s not abnormal necessarily.

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corey_moncure
So 500 die alone every year, let's give this number some perspective. Tokyo's
population is 9.273 million, the highest of any city in the world, of which
some 23% or roughly 2.1 million are aged 65 or over, and 500 of these are
dying alone every year? So 0.005% of the general population or 0.023% of the
elderly.

~~~
reustle
Tokyo Metropolis, which Tama Ward falls under, has roughly 14 million people.
Greater Tokyo has 39 million.

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maxander
You’ve got to admire Japan- they face a problem for the welfare of their
citizens, but they’re grappling with it in an intelligent and informed manner.
They’re not particularly close to solving the underlying issues but, from the
sound of it at least, steps are in the consistently right direction.

In the U.S., in contrast, this kind of problem wouldn’t even come up- because
everyone involved would be living on the street, and no one in a position of
civic authority would consider it their responsibility.

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euske
I tend to think that there's some business opportunity here, especially for
tech companies (although they might not be entirely a private sector). I've
seen numerous companies who are specialized in surveillance and communication
for the elderly. They are not yet widespread due to technical and privacy
concerns, but I'd be excited to see more development in this area in future.

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Animats
Japan, except for Osaka and Tokyo, is emptying out. The country's population
peaked in 2011.[1] It's not a suburban problem.

At least Japan can maintain that housing.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan)

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ruytlm
Similar article from 2017:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-
lonely-d...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/japan-lonely-
deaths-the-end.html)

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xchaotic
A very good example of the negative effects of reversing a good social policy
(universal social housing)

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kevin_thibedeau
70 year olds wouldn't be so decrepit if it weren't for the lifetime of
smoking.

~~~
astrange
Don't forget that drinking milk is actually bad for your bones.

[https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/349/bmj.g6015.full.pdf](https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/349/bmj.g6015.full.pdf)

