(CNN) — The number of empty houses in Japan has risen to a record nine million, more than enough for every person in New York City, as the East Asian country continues to struggle with its steadily declining population.
Abandoned houses are known in Japan as “akiya”, a term that generally refers to abandoned residential houses hidden in rural areas.
But more akiya are being seen in major cities, such as Tokyo and Kyoto, and that is a problem for a government that is already dealing with an aging population and an alarming drop in the number of children born each year.
“This is a symptom of Japan’s declining population,” said Jeffrey Hall, a professor at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba. “It’s not really a problem of building too many houses,” but “a problem of not having enough people,” he said.
According to figures compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 14% of all residential properties in Japan are empty.
The figures include second homes and those left empty for other reasons, including properties temporarily vacant while their owners work abroad.
Not all are abandoned to ruin, like the traditional akiya, whose growing numbers present a host of other problems for the government and communities, experts told CNN.
They include stifling attempts to rejuvenate decaying cities, becoming potential hazards due to lack of maintenance and increasing risks for rescuers in times of disaster in a country prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.
Weeds and vines grow around an abandoned house in Okuma, Japan, on March 9, 2023, ahead of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. (Photo: Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images)
The problem of excess housing
Akiya are often passed down from generation to generation. But with Japan’s fertility rate plummeting, many are left with no heir to pass on to, or are inherited by younger generations who have moved to cities and see little value in returning to rural areas, the researchers said. experts to CNN.
Some houses are also left in administrative limbo because local authorities do not know who the owners are due to a lack of records, they said.
That makes it difficult for the government to rejuvenate rapidly aging rural communities, hampering efforts to attract young people interested in an alternative lifestyle or investors looking for a bargain.
Under Japan’s tax policies, some homeowners often find it cheaper to keep the house than to demolish it for redevelopment.
And even if owners want to sell, they may have trouble finding buyers, said Hall, of Kanda University.
“Many of these homes are isolated from access to public transportation, health care and even convenience stores,” he said.
Overgrown vegetation surrounds an empty house in the Yato area of Yokosuka city, Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, on August 21, 2013. (Photo: Akio Kon/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File.)
Videos showing people, mainly foreigners, picking up cheap Japanese houses and turning them into stylish guesthouses and cafes have gained a following on social media in recent years, but Hall warned it’s not as easy as it seems.
“The truth is that most of these houses are not going to be sold to foreigners, or the amount of administrative work and the rules behind it are not something that is easy for someone who does not speak Japanese and reads Japanese very well,” he said.
“They’re not going to be able to get these houses cheaply.”
Very few people
Japan’s population has been in decline for several years: at the last count in 2022, the population had fallen by more than 800,000 people from the previous year, to 125.4 million.
In 2023, the number of new births fell for the eighth consecutive year, reaching an all-time low, according to official data.
Japan’s birth rate has hovered around 1.3 for years, far from the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population, and last week Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said the number of children under 15 had fallen for the 43rd consecutive year to a record low of around 14 million, as of April 1.
A partially collapsed abandoned wooden house in Tambasasayama, Japan, on April 5, 2023. (Photo: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images).
All of this means that the problem of too many houses and not enough people looks set to continue for some time.
Yuki Akiyama, a professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Design at Tokyo City University, says empty houses have caused problems in the past, for example after the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that hit the city in January. Noto Peninsula, central Ishikawa Prefecture.
The area where the quake struck was infested with akiya, he said, and they posed both a danger to residents during the disaster and a challenge to post-quake reconstruction.
“When an earthquake or tsunami occurs, there is a chance that empty houses could block evacuation routes by collapsing and being destroyed,” he explained.
After the quake, authorities had trouble deciding which damaged properties they could clean up due to a lack of clarity over their ownership, which posed “an obstacle to reconstruction,” Akiyama said.
In other rural areas with a high concentration of empty houses, the akiya have paralyzed development, the professor said.
With these properties intact, he said, “the value of the area will be reduced because it is a place where you cannot buy and sell properly and you cannot do large-scale development.”
“People will think that this place has no value, and the real estate value of the entire area will gradually decrease.”
Akiyama has devised an artificial intelligence program to predict the areas most vulnerable to akiya, but stressed that the problem is not exclusive to Japan: it has been seen in the United States and some European countries.
However, Japan’s architectural history and culture make the situation especially dire.
Japanese houses are not valued for their longevity and, unlike in the West, people do not usually see advantages in living in historic buildings.
“In Japan, the newer the house, the more expensive it sells,” he says.
