In this reflection, you’ll hear from a delegate on lessons learned from the Tokyo Study Trip.
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On our last day in Tokyo, I visited the Aoyama Kitamachi Apartments, a city-operated low-income housing complex near Omotesando’s higher-end shops, galleries, and quiet neighborhoods. The original post-war complex, which closely resembled the minimalistic concrete and Soviet-inspired low-income danchi apartment buildings from the sixties, was demolished and redeveloped to meet modern seismic standards, but they also took it as an opportunity to more holistically integrate childcare, community facilities, and senior living.
The building shows a clear attention to detail in its design and construction, its indoor and outdoor public spaces, and inside the units. Eight hosts from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government subdivided and led our group in two smaller tours across different apartment floors. One of our young hosts carried a large cardboard box of slippers, offering them in exchange for our shoes so we wouldn’t mark or dirty the floors of the new apartments.
In one vacant apartment, I noticed a tatami mat on the floor and a paper curtain on the sliding glass door leading to the balcony. A host explained the curtain was temporary, meant to protect the tatami from direct sunlight. Magnetic cards are given to all tenants to post on their doors after earthquakes: one side spelling out safety in green lettering, the other side signaling a need for help in red. Our tour ended with a walk through the back of the apartment building past a modest children’s playground and through a small, quiet, public garden.
As we left the apartment building, I was struck by the many demonstrations of care we witnessed on the tour: the planned design and materials of the building, the considerations for current and future tenants, and the hospitable manner in which we were welcomed.
In my short time there, I came to see that care in Japan shows up in many forms. After disasters, the government rebuilds at a national scale. In more stable times, it produces a surplus of housing. For someone used to constant headlines about housing shortages and affordable housing disinvestment in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere, this was a striking contrast. In Japan, abundant housing reflects a core belief that every resident deserves a place to live, and that caring for people is a public leader’s responsibility.