Affordable Housing in Tokyo’s Japan

Tokyo accommodates almost 40 million residents yet remains one of the cheapest global cities for renters and buyers. This paper demonstrates that the affordability is neither accidental nor the simple result of Japan’s national population decline. Instead, three mutually reinforcing urban-policy anomalies—(1) short physical and fiscal life-span of dwellings, (2) extremely liberal mixed-use zoning, and (3) centrally overridden development approval—create a housing market that continuously tears down and rebuilds at higher density. The outcome is a flexible, high-turnover stock that expands faster than household growth, keeping real prices low. The paper concludes by discussing the cultural, legal and political barriers that prevent other megacities from copying the Tokyo model.