NYT Reporting on Japan’s Abandoned Houses

2 comments

1. I really hope there doesn’t end up being a huge rush for corporations and millionaire slumlords/airbnbLords to buy up real estate in Japan and turn them into short term rentals.

2. My parents-in-law have an old family house in a little village in rural Tochigi. Over the past couple of decades, a lot of houses were left empty and started to decay. Some of them were really lovely old houses, with old stone kura beside them.

   The last few years, though, have seen a big change as a lot of the empty old houses have been demolished, the sites cleared, and solar panels put up in their stead. It seems like about a third of the old village area is now solar panels.