Thanks to a multitude of factors — the weak yen, inbound tourism and the proliferation of YouTube channels on the subject, to name a few — akiya, or abandoned houses, are more prominent than ever in Japan’s cultural landscape. Foreign interest in the country’s empty dwellings has never been higher, and it is only likely to grow along with the number of abandoned properties, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications projects will reach 4.7 million in 2030.
What trips up many potential buyers from abroad is the byzantine nature of Japan’s housing market. A seemingly endless array of fees, widespread housing discrimination and a lack of coherent information about land quality are just some of the challenges that crop up — and that’s before taking language barriers into consideration.
Kyoko Watanabe, 37, is familiar with these issues. Watanabe is one of many residents of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, who arrived as a volunteer in 2011 after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and ended up staying. Having studied urban planning at university, she had long been interested in placemaking and akiya-related issues. As a student, she had visited other rural areas in Japan being revitalized through the creative use of their akiya as part of efforts to attract new residents. But at the time, she says, no one in Ishinomaki seemed to have thought of repurposing the abandoned dwellings in the city to help house earthquake survivors and visiting volunteers.
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