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Over the past two decades housing pathways have become increasingly differentiated between generations, particularly in advanced societies dominated by owner-occupied tenure systems. Demographic transformations caused by aging and falling fertility rates, along with a more volatile economy and a neo-liberal reorientation of governance have combined to restructure housing conditions. Drawing on empirical research in Japan, this paper illustrates the social origins and impact of generation-based differentiations in housing patterns in that country. It considers the housing experiences of three cohorts: baby-boomers, baby-busters and the 'lost generation'. The contrast of housing pathways between these generations in Japan illustrates the contemporary dynamics of housing and social processes in homeowner societies.[image omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's condominium sector expanded rapidly along with post-war urbanisation and high-speed economic growth. However, the bursting of the bubble economy in the 1990s undermined land and housing markets. Capital losses on condominiums have been disproportionate, especially in cases of older, smaller or non-centrally located condominiums. This analysis incorporates socio-cultural elements in explaining emerging patterns of fragmentation among homeowners and property values. It illustrates relationships between the meaning of housing commodities and the context of indigenous production and consumption processes in urban Japan. The paper specifically draws upon data from interviews with Japanese homeowners to illustrate the significance of values and perceptions in the modern condominium sector and their relationship to changing socioeconomic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the housing recovery policy carried out in Kobe, a disaster city heavily damaged by the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 17 January 1995. The housing problems in the earthquake-hit city resulted not only from direct damage by the disaster. Urban restructuring, underway beforehand, had been generating socio-economic polarisation and geographical disparity in housing conditions. The earthquake caused especially heavy damage on the inner-city housing of low-income people and the elderly. Housing recovery progress in the post-disaster period has also been unequal. This paper shows the growing socio-economic and spatial polarisation. The framework of Japan's housing policy is a two-tiered system. On the one hand, most people are encouraged to obtain their own houses by their own efforts on the market, whereas on the other, public housing as residual welfare housing is directly provided for those who are marginal to the market. The housing recovery policy followed this framework, and functioned to socio-spatially isolate low-income and/or elderly victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes basic housing conditions in Japan and offers an assessment of them against the background of progress over time and within the context of housing conditions in several Western countries. Discussion of the emerging affordability crisis for renters and owners within broader context of housing provision and review responses to it; Illustration of how affordability varies across population and groups.