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okay serious news reader
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voice this is a story about property
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prices spiraling out of control for the
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majority of people the property
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revolution has become more of a curse in
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Tokyo Japan if you think it's a tough
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housing market in Sydney take heart in
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Tokyo it's a real estate chamber of
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Horrors for example take this young
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family the karus are just one of the
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many young families who have been forced
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far out of the city center by real
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estate prices Mr and Mrs canaro have a
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baby daughter Big Dreams and a mountain
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of debt they borrowed heavily to buy
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this two-bedroom apartment current price
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3/4 of a millionar the apartment cost
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more than Mr canaro thought that he
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would make in a lifetime at his job in
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the city the typical Tokyo wage owner
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must commute 2 or 3 hours a day in
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trains which rarely afford the luxury of
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a seat it sounds familiar right there's
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a growing sense of inequality between
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Japanese who own land and those who
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don't but here's the thing this isn't
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now this is Tokyo in the
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1980s and yet today it's not like this
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Tokyo housing is by the standards of big
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cities in wealthy countries incredibly
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affordable it's proof that a housing
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crisis isn't inevitable even if it looks
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that way to millions of desperate
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potential home buyers in London New York
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Sydney and the rest of the developed
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World in in today's episode how did
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Japan opt out of the global housing
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crisis and can we opt out too I'm Matt
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Bon and this is if you're
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[Music]
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listening since the end of World War II
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Australians have been chasing an idea
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that we call the Australian dream is the
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country is the
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country
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anywhere our national monument might
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will be a Suburban Cottage on a quar
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acre block the Australian Dream owning
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your own home on a quar of an acre block
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perhaps with a pool grass for the kids
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to play a patio for entertaining a
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garden and even a veggie patch and once
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upon a time that was attainable
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Australia has the world's highest
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proportion of homeowners but in
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Australia it's been getting harder to
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buy a home and it's not a recent problem
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it's been getting worse and worse for
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the last 60 years the problem of housing
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finan hits at all income groups but for
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those who earn less than2 a week the
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housing position is desperate back in
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the' 60s like today millions of young
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Australians rented one bedroom
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apartments while saving up for a house
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and planning for a better future oh we
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do plan it's like a dream you plan you
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plan you plan you get nothing by the
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1980s buying a house was becoming more
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and more difficult more and more young
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Australians are seeing that great
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Australian Dream fading away and by 1985
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we were in crisis mode New South Wales
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is in the grip of the worst housing
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crisis in 40 years if Sydney was in a
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housing crisis in
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1985 what would you call the situation
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now it's so dire that it's spread to
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other cities as well I'm sure you've
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heard your fair share of Doom and Gloom
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about how expensive housing is today so
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let me give you one good example and
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then we can move on the best measure of
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housing affordability is how many years
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it would take to buy immed Ian priced
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house if you spent your entire income on
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the house 50 years ago it was 5 years
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median salary in Sydney now it's 15
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years why well we designed the economy
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to benefit Property Owners now we could
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just build more houses but a lot of
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people don't want more houses it's
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called being a nimi not in my
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backyard but that's just the way it is
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right this is how it's run in the US UK
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Canada New Zealand most of Western
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Europe ever else that has a housing
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crisis at the moment but is there
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another way to run things well prepare
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to have your mind
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blown cuz we're going to talk about the
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history of town planning controls in
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Japan and it doesn't get much sexier
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than that in a way Japan's current
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system is thanks to a Steven Bradbury
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like situation a man who wasn't expected
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to become the Prime Minister got the top
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job because everyone else fell over in
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front of him most Japanese prime
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ministers are moderate men who can find
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consensus not guys who like rocking the
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boat but yasahiro nakason quite liked
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rocking boats in World War II the boats
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he rocked were literal he was an officer
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in the Japanese Imperial Navy stationed
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in
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Indonesia he's remembered for among
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other things setting up a military
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brothel a comfort station for his
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soldiers something nakason felt
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comfortable writing about at length in
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his Memoir but later in life when
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talking about things like forcing women
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under military occupation into sexual
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slavery became much less publicly
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acceptable he said that it was a board
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games Club changing his stance on big
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issues kind of became yasahiro
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nakasone's thing he went into politics
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soon after the war and built a
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reputation as a Weather Vein during the
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following three decades in Parliament Mr
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nakason has been the heir of parent to
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the leadership for many years but his
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sudden shifts of Allegiance have made
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him enemies in his party he's also more
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right-wing than other contenders by 1980
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he'd been Passover for prime minister so
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many times that he'd basically given up
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and settled into a new role as the
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minister for administrative management
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which sounds like a spectacularly boring
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job but while he languished in obscurity
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his ideas about housing began to take
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shape
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you ever had a conversation with someone
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which ends with well if only they asked
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us then all the world's problems would
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be solved well Nason started having a
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lot of those conversations with one of
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Japan's most prominent businessmen Toshi
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doo doo was in his 80s and was the head
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of
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[Music]
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Toshiba he was a classic japanese
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businessman he was famously never late
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to work or absent a single day in 40
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years he was good to his staff but
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expected them to follow his instructions
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and he wasn't a fan of the government
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getting in his way with taxes or
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regulations Doo and nakason spent months
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traveling the country coming up with
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plans for how they totally revamp how
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the Japanese government worked If Only
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They were given a chance part of nason's
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strategy was to make Doo seem like a
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wise grandfatherly Every Man a TV
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documentary was made about his home Life
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featuring and I'm not kidding 3 and a
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half minute sequence of doco and his
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wife eating breakfast and chatting well
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I say chatting Mrs Doo talks and Mr Doo
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grunts while munching on his
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sardines doco and neason worked
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incredibly hard for a year and by the
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end of it they had a big comprehensive
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plan to completely upend how the
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Japanese government worked and lucky for
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them in 1982 out of nowhere the Prime
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Minister resigned and neas finally got
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the top job we've got a winner their
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plan was a neoconservative capitalist
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fantasy they threw absolutely everything
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they could get their hands on into the
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open market just to see what happened
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they sold the government-owned railways
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tobacco companies and phone companies
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and used the revenue in infrastructure
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programs aimed at supercharging Big
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Business it went pretty well the poor
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little rich country is flush with money
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in search of a home and his plans won
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him fans overseas he the US President
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Ronald Reagan and UK prime minister
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Margaret Thatcher became a little neocon
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superg group but despite the influx of
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cash there was a downside Tokyo is a big
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and messy City it's unplanned mostly
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lowrise and crying out for redevelopment
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land prices in Tokyo started to spiral
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out of control you're looking at the
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world's most expensive Concrete Jungle a
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place where even real estate agents
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can't buy a home workers were forced to
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move to the fringes of the big cities
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for the majority of people the property
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revolution has become more of a curse
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never fear though because Doo and nasoni
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had a plan starting in Tokyo Nason asked
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councils to allow developers to build
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more housing the council said no the
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people who voted them in didn't want
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massive development so nagasone just
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changed the law local councils now had
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no control town planning was now
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National planning and his National plan
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was to give developers free reign and
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clear the way for high density housing
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the inner city has become a battle Zone
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and a losing battle for those wanting to
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live out their days in the old home
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Heritage controls were no more addal
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downtown neighborhoods are rapidly
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disappearing before the wrecker's
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machines land owners were offered big
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sums to leave and if they didn't take it
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well they would really wish that they
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had developers are using gangsters to
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harass residents and attack their
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property so as to weaken resistance
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sometimes the developers didn't even
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wait for the sale walls are bulldozed in
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during the night Apartments broken into
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and vandalized so they can't be rented
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again some who refused to move found
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their homes surrounded by High R
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apartments exactly like the guy from the
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Pixar movie up the notice outside this
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house reads I have absolutely no
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intention of ever selling basically
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nakason created a freefor all does your
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city not have enough houses no problem
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just pull down the family homes and put
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up highrises build houses over that Park
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cram a tiny house between those two big
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ones in the decad since sakon's ter in
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office a lot of things have changed the
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Japanese economy has crashed and
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recovered crashed and recovered
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to your kids isn't nearly as attractive
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as it is elsewhere also while land has a
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lot of value houses don't Japan's almost
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constant earthquakes have led the
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building standards to undergo constant
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revision to make sure that homes can be
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ensured knocking down a home just cuz
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you want a new one is also common
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practice living in a home you've bought
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from someone else is kind of just not a
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thing that people want to
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do all of that means that in Japan homes
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are like cars they become less valuable
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with age most homes in Japan are knocked
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down after about 30 years it's all
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drastically different to the approach
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that Australia has taken since the 1980s
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where at the local level development is
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something that many people fear if you
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want to demolish the building and put up
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a block of flats it won't be allowed
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across Australia's inner cities whole
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suburbs are unable to be developed
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because of strict Heritage rules
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habberfield may be only the first of
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many suburbs to be Heritage listed and
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at the national level Australians have
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voted repeatedly for governments that
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promise to increase the value of their
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property
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assets Japan definitely isn't perfect
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but it clearly shows that there are
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solutions out there to the housing
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crisis if you really want to find
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them
