Tokyo

Tokyo is one of the few cities in the world that has managed to maintain housing prices. His secret: build

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“If you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger.” This oft-repeated maxim (and mistakenly coined for Dwight D. Eisenhower) can be good advice when it comes to housing: Expanding the scope of a problem can make new solutions possible. Japan is the world’s best example of an advanced industrial democracy with abundance of affordable housing with low carbon emissions. To build. The key to Japan’s success is its unusual degree of national control over zoning and building rules. Centralized authority trumps local housing obstructionism. Tokyo builds more housing in a year than all of California or all of England, which have 3 or 4 times its population. In the largest megalopolis in the world, the way Rents stay low in the long term is to build. National decisions. The political scientist Grant McConnell wrote on the classic articulation of the view that the national government is more likely to solve difficult problems than state or local governments. Small can be beautiful, the reasoning goes, but it can also be provincial, backward and oligarchic. This logic fits well with the housing issue: Putting much more at stake, all at once, in one big fight, rather than piece by piece in hundreds of separate local fights, could disrupt the housing war. More homes around the world. The world has provided some examples of this. Japan has had extraordinary success in housing construction. He has long been a leader and expanded his leadership even further in recent years. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have always had good records, behind Japan but still performing well. France has stepped up, at least in Paris. These countries generally employ rule-based (or “by right”) building permit systems: if your plans check the stipulated boxes, building authorities have no choice but to sign. The Anglo-Saxons. On the other hand, English-speaking countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand, are lagging behind. Their permit systems are often more discretionarygiving local officials the power to approve or reject buildings at will. In many parts of these countries, especially their large cities, housing is expensive because it is scarce. For now, the Anglosphere suffers the worst housing shortages and prices. The Japanese case. The Asian country is the best example of the maxim of “magnifying” problems. Japan’s national government controls the use of land and buildings to a greater extent than national authorities in other countries. This control has grown in recent decades, even as other nations have gone into lockdown. The number of homes built per year in industrial democracies has fallen by more than 60% since 1970, according to The Economist. Meanwhile, housing construction in Japan has remained solid at all timesbroad public interest in abundant housing has triumphed over obstructionism. What did they do? To boost construction and lower prices, Japan redoubled efforts to allow more housing construction. He resorted, in particular, to administrative changes in building codes. “To help the economy recover from the bubble, the country eased the regulation of urban development,” explained Hiro Ichikawa, a construction development advisor. in the Financial Times. “If it hadn’t been for the bubble, Tokyo would be in the same situation as London or San Francisco.” Build, build and build. The results, in abundant housing, low prices and low carbon urban formswalkable and transit-focused, are notable. The city of Tokyo had 13.5 million residents in 2018. But the city built 145,000 new residences that year. Tokyo’s achievement was particularly surprising considering that the prefecture has very little vacant land, so almost all of those 145,000 homes were located in an existing neighborhood. The astonishing pace of housing construction in the capital has continued for years. Tokyo routinely builds more new homes than all of California (which has three times its population) or, in some years, all of England (which has four times its population). It has increased housing construction by 30% since the turn of the century, even as its population peaked and began to decline in 2007. disposable houses. It is true that Japan demolishes houses much earlier than other industrialized countriesso a large portion of their housing starts are replacement housing. But the much criticized Japanese culture of “disposable houses” It is actually one of the secrets of its success. Japan’s rigorous and up-to-date earthquake safety laws, plus a cultural attachment to new homes, mean that tiny houses in Japan often depreciate completely in just 30 years and are replaced soon after. Because housing is renovated quickly, the country has a much better chance of installing larger buildings. In parts of the US, where buildings typically have an economic life of 100 years, you only have one chance per century to replace a house with an apartment building. In Japan, you get three. More housing. The prefecture has tripled its stocks of housing in the last 50 years and has expanded the number of residences in the city by about 2% annually since 2000. In fact, its overall housing unit growth rate was three times faster than London or New York in the 2010s. Among the 14 megacities around the world, only Singapore and Seoul surpassed Tokyo in the pace of overall housing growth. Thanks to the Japanese program to govern housing, Tokyo Prefecture and the world’s largest metropolis have completely avoided residential closures. Japan seems to have learned the maxim attributed to Eisenhower: if you can’t solve a problem, make it bigger. In Xataka | In its crazy rise in housing prices, Madrid has just broken a barrier: that of the most expensive apartment in its history In Xataka | Tenants and owners are not the same type of Spaniards: some pay €400 more than others for the same home Image | Yu Kato

In Tokyo there is a bookstore with only one book in the catalog. It has been open for ten years and works

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In an alley in the Ginza district of Tokyo, a small white-painted room houses what could be considered the most radical bookstore in the world. Morioka Shotenopened in May 2015 by Yoshiyuki Morioka, reverses the commercial logic of the book: while the Japanese publishing industry produces approximately 80,000 new titles each yearthis establishment only sells one, which is renewed every week. It is not performance. Morioka Shoten It is a business that works, selling multiple copies of a single work for six consecutive days. The interior is unusually bare for a bookstore (concrete walls, a piece of furniture used as a counter, a cable telephone) and serves as a canvas for displays inspired by the current book. It is a bit the absolute opposite of Amazon: from infinite offer to minimalism in choice. How it works. Each title remains on display for exactly six days, from Tuesday to Sunday, accompanied by artistic installations, objects or photographs related to its content. The space functions simultaneously as a gallery and a point of sale. The location of the project reinforces this symbolic dimension: the Suzuki Buildingbuilt in 1929 and protected as historic architecture, housed between the 1930s and the end of World War II the offices of Nippon Kobo, the publisher that produced the magazine ‘Nippon’, which many consider foundational for the modern Japanese publishing industry. The context. The opening of Morioka Shoten in 2015 comes at a critical time for the industry. Two decades earlier, in 1995, Amazon had begun operations, and the domino effect was inevitable: American independent bookstores went from more than 7,000 stores in 1994 to just 1,651 in 2009, a reduction of 76%. The physical bookstore model seemed obsolete given the speed of the Internet and recommendation algorithms. Morioka Shoten proposed just the opposite: concentration, deliberate scarcity and time to focus on a single work. The philosophy of issatsu, isshitsu. The Japanese expression issatsu, isshitsu It means “a room, a book.” For eight years, Yoshiyuki Morioka worked as an employee in second-hand bookstores in the Kanda neighborhood, a traditional bibliophile district in Tokyo. He later opened his own independent bookstore in Kayabacho, where he organized author presentations that multiplied sales. The question that it was done was: why maintain hundreds of works if the optimal experience was produced with just one? The Takram design studio developed the store’s visual identity based on a sketch by Morioka himself: a rhombus that condenses the double metaphor of the project, simultaneously representing an open book and a single room. The resurgence of indie. The proposal is part of a broader recovery of independent book trade. In 2015, a curious phenomenon occurred in the United States: American indie bookstores. They began to multiplyup to 49%. The study cited factors such as the feeling of community, the work of booksellers as curators and the capacity of bookstores as meeting points. The pandemic accelerated the trend: since 2020 The sector grew by 70%, in 2024, 323 new stores were inaugurated and in 2025, more than a hundred additional stores were opened in the first months of the year alone. Quality over quantity. The commercial results of the experiment confirm the viability of the model. Morioka Shoten has sold more than 2,000 works since its inauguration. The weekly catalog has ranged from comics by Tove Jansson to botanical photographs by Karl Blossfeldt, novels by Mimei Ogawa and short stories by Hans Christian Andersen, spanning fiction, non-fiction, manga and illustrated books. In an era that offers immediate access to millions of titles, abundance generates paralysis when it comes to decisions. From that point of view, Morioka’s radical limitation does not restrict, but liberates. In Xataka | The 24 most beautiful bookstores in the world

Tokyo was one of the few megalopolises that had kept housing prices in check. That’s over

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For years half the planet (and another half as well) viewed Tokyo with a mixture of admiration, curiosity and envy. While other metropolises were dealing with increasingly expensive housing, which was expelling the most humble families, the Japanese capital made headlines On the contrary: in 2023 there were who presented it in fact as “the last big city with affordable housing.” At least if we were talking about rents. And that was the most populated city of the planet. There is signs that that is changing. Tokyo’ the affordable‘. Binyamin Appelbaum, columnist for The New York Times, I told it very well in 2023: while a couple on the minimum wage was unable to pay the rent for a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the New York area, another Japanese couple with the same conditions (full-time work and the legal minimum wage) could afford equivalent housing in at least half a dozen districts of Tokyo. The Japanese capital was a benchmark, the example of rentals within reach of any pocket. “The last big city with affordable housing”, titled at full blast around those same dates the Australian newspaper Financial Review. Tokyo vs Manhattan. The data confirms that Appelbaum was not wrong. Although living in Tokyo is far from cheap, in 2023 the city had a residential offer large and diverse enough to not suffocate its residents. Even the most humble. In 2024 Michael Amerson, analyst at the US Department of Housing, explained that renting a one-bedroom apartment in central Tokyo cost around 80,000 yen, about $500. Other sources speak of between 630 and 1,580 dollars per month, but even those figures are far from the 4,000 that is asked for a home of the same type in Manhattan. “Unlike other metropolitan areas around the world, Tokyo has avoided a housing crisis. Residents can enjoy a vibrant urban lifestyle without having to shoulder the financial burden that residents of many other large cities bear,” pointed out Amerson. The reason? To a large extent Tokyo real estate culture. Unlike what happens in other metropolises, the Japanese capital has “an accelerated cycle of housing demolition and reconstruction,” which makes it easier to adapt to the needs of the market. But… And why is that? “People treat houses like cars,” Appelbaum joked in 2023. New construction is prioritized to such an extent that its weight in the market far exceeds that of other cities. Between 2013 and 2018, new housing represented 86% of sales in Japan, while in the US that percentage is usually around 15%. Unlike what happens in other cities that prioritize the conservation of their old buildings or pamper their historic districts, something different takes precedence in Tokyo: urban renewal. It is not just a question of the market or urban regulation. That way of thinking connects with his planning style and the history of a region forced to deal with natural disasters who has also seen how fire and the bombs They affected part of his assets. Added to this are regulatory issues that facilitate the progress of the works and their commitment to tall buildings, homes that are often small by European standards and with few green areas. Signs of change. In recent months, however, some media outlets have stopped talking about the virtues of the Tokyo model to become a question: “Is it still affordable to live there?” That is the doubt that I left bouncing in September The Japan Times in a article in which he confirms that (at least if we talk about the buying and selling market) the city is no longer within reach of any pocket. Tokyoites have encountered a price increase that affects both new housing and second-hand properties. And the latter usually wake up little interest among buyers. a study from the Tokyo Kantei company shows that it is no longer strange that the average price of a used apartment of 80 square meters exceeds 100 million yen, around 540,000 euros, with year-on-year increases that are even above 30%. Are there more indicators? Yes. They are just that, indicators, but at a minimum break the rhetoric that has surrounded the Tokyo real estate market until now. There are studies that speak of year-on-year price increases of 9% or even more than 60% if the focus is expanded and the data from 2021 and 2025 are compared. Prices are also growing in the metropolitan area (although to a lesser extent) and seem to be also affecting the rental market residential. In practice, this means that a family that a few years ago could acquire Quietly, a modern three-bedroom, 70 m2 apartment near the center of Tokyo for just over $400,000 is now forced to look at real estate agencies in other areas. And it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change. The latest data from Tokyo Kantei show that the price of a 70 m2 second-hand apartment is around 114 million yen, 34% more than in 2025. And what is the reason? Better to talk about “reasons”, in the plural. The analysts who have been launched To speculate on the reasons for the price increase, they point to the increase in material and labor costs, the influence of the pandemic on buyers’ tastes (they are now looking for houses with more rooms), the effect of historically low interest rates or simply the increase in demand for housing in Tokyo. While the rest of the country loses population, the capital remains more or less stable either even win residents. Exploring the market. There is another factor that helps understand Tokyo’s price rise, one that also has slipped in in it political debate: home purchases by foreigners, including those for speculative purposes. The weakness of the yen, the fact that Japanese real estate was more affordable than that of other countries and the lack of restrictions on foreign purchases has attracted the interest of investors of other nationalities, which has in turn been felt in the price per m2. The data are certainly eloquent. In … Read more

In Spain, more and more parents go with their children to complain to the university. In Tokyo they have “monster parents”

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The image was so utterly disconcerting which didn’t take long to go viral. A few weeks ago the University of Granada it was news because a vice dean of the Faculty of Educational Sciences hung a poster reminding that teachers “do not serve parents”, and insisted: “All enrolled students are of legal age.” something similar made by the University of Oviedo, which also hung a similar poster pointing that their students are now adults and the regulations limit the information that the center can give to their parents. The phenomenon is not, however, exclusive to Spain. In Japan, overprotective parents have become such a serious problem that it has forced the authorities to move tab in schools. The goal: protect teachers. New guidelines. That a body like the Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education publishes guidelines on how schools should act in certain circumstances is nothing new. It is true that these guidelines do not focus on the teaching load, schedules, extracurricular activities or anything that has to do with the education of young people or the organization of the faculty. The objective of the new recommendations of the Council are focused on something else. Basically how teachers should act when they encounter what in Japan they have already started to call (and not without reason) ‘monster parents’overprotective fathers and mothers who do not hesitate to get into fights with teachers, demand accountability and have long discussions about all kinds of issues. But is the problem so serious? It seems so. And there are a couple of studies that help understand it. a survey published in April with some 12,000 public school teachers in Tokyo revealed that 22% claimed to have received “socially questionable” treatment from people outside the school, especially parents. A previous reportfrom just a year ago, prepared by the Japanese Association of Mutual Aid of Public School Teachers, also identified that dealing with students’ parents was a source of stress for teachers. Connected with the karoshi. It’s not just that parents increase teachers’ anxiety. As remember This Week in Asiaeach teacher usually has several classes with dozens of students (about 30), so in the end the meetings and telephone conversations with parents end up becoming an extra workload that lengthens the faculty’s day. Sometimes several hours every week. A recent report on karoshiknown as “death from overwork”, reflects that during the last three years the education sector has been one of those with the highest percentage of personnel who work more than 60 hours per week. They are only surpassed by transportation, logistics and hospitality. “Irrational requests”. Why do they complain? ‘monster parents’? What makes them show up every now and then at their children’s teachers’ offices, send them messages or keep them on the phone for hours? The Japan Times speaks of “irrational requests” related to students who refuse to go to class or have been reprimanded, but other media cite stranger cases. This Week in Asia refers complaints from parents upset because the cherry trees had not bloomed in time for their children’s entrance ceremonies, about the taste of school menus or about insect bites. “There are two types of parents, those who are demanding but kind, who sometimes offer us gifts, and those who seem to always be dissatisfied, no matter what,” says one teacher. Of insects and girlfriends. Tsuji, professor of sociology of culture at Chuo University in Tokyo, recognize their fear that the phenomenon is going beyond schools and reaching faculties. “These young people are in college and yet their parents insist on telling their teachers what they should do,” he says. “The university has received complaints from parents about the quality of the food and one mother called demanding to know why her son had not made new friends.” Not long ago, she herself had to assist a mother who was worried because her university son couldn’t find a girlfriend. “I didn’t know what to answer,” he confesses. Other teacher relates the ordeal that school trips entail. “Parents call or message teachers at midnight or even later to ask what their child needs to bring, where to meet, what time they need to arrive, what they’re going to see, and so on.” The most curious thing, he regrets, is that all this information is given to all students well in advance. putting order. Against this backdrop, the Tokyo Board of Education has issued a series of guidelines for metropolitan centers. The goal? That their teachers know how to act in each case. Your guidelines are clear and simple: meetings with parents will no longer last 30 minutes a week, a maximum of one hour in special cases to prevent them from interrupting the rest of their work. In these meetings there will also be at least two teachers and if the parents insist on meeting with the center, the case will pass from the teachers to the management. From the fourth meeting onwards, other professionals will come into play to address the matter, such as psychologists or even lawyers. Of course, the talks will be recorded and if necessary (if a parent loses his manners) a security company or even the intervention of the police. Because? The big question. What explains the phenomenon of ‘monster parents’? Although in Tokyo the focus has been on schools, not so much on faculties, the backdrop is not different from that of the controversies that have arisen here in Oviedo or Granada: protective parents and the diminished authority of teachers. “This problem has been increasing in recent years,” Tsuji confesses.who remembers that in the middle birth crisis In Japan, parents are invested in the well-being and academic success of their children. Added to this are cultural and social changes, which include the fact that new parents come from educated generations who feel more authorized to deal with teachers. Images | Egor Myznik (Unsplash) and Stephanie Hau (Unsplash) In Xataka | There is a national symbol that Japan has kept unchanged for generations: a very expensive … Read more

Of all that Madrid’s Metro could copy of Tokyo, he has opted for the craziest: “Embujadores”

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The Madrid Metro congested, it is crowded and there is no more soul. It is what is lived every morning and the images have been getting worse over the years. With half a city raised by the works, the situation has been complicated (even) more in the Madrid suburban. Solution: “Pushers”. 120 people. That is the number of traigators that Metro de Madrid has deployed to manage and redirect the volume of passengers that tries to find a hole in the wagons of the Madrid lines, they explain in eldiario.es. The goal is to alert travelers that they are trying to clench in a vehicle when the same train still has a free gap to cover. Obviously, passengers have not taken to describe these employees as “pushers”, referring to Japanese personnel who in the Tokyo subway constraint passengers with strength of the wagons during the wagons during the peak hours. Oshiyas. EITHER “EMPJORADORES”in Spanish. Men, suit and white gloves. And less common than we think. It is a simple, effective, not very orthodox but key job for a suburban that moves some 8.3 million passengers daily. The Oshiyas They are responsible for pushing travelers in the subway. They do it without contemplations, compressing passengers to the last loophole before closing the doors. They take care, in fact, that a briefcase does not hinder the maneuver or closing the doors themselves. Yes indeed, Not all stations They have their pushers. His work is concentrated early in the morning and, to attend the “show”, you have to move to one of the main stations of the city such as Ueno, Shinjuku or Okachimachi. Managing. The “pushers” of the Madrid Metro are very different. Because they change the suit, the hat and the white gloves for a yellow vest with the company of the company. But above all because they don’t really push. Or not, at least, as is done in the subway stations of the Japanese city. In this case, these workers push passengers to move to an area of ​​the subway carrier a little more busy. Do not squeeze people by force but passengers do do their best to occupy until the last loophole. These “pushers” are something like “space managers.” Click on the image to go to the original tweet Click on the image to go to the original tweet It is not the first time. As they point out in the digital medium, it is not the first time that these workers appear in the Madrid suburban. The company provides for the use of this type of personnel in exceptional circumstances such as football or large concerts, but only in the stations close to the enclosure. Already in 2017 the term “pushers” became common in the conversations of those who took public transport early in the morning. So The world He explained that the workers could “play in the back to help (passengers) to get on the car.” On that occasion they were on Line 4 due to the works on Line 8 and the workers were also known as “plates.” A gymnkana. Madrid has become in recent months a Cumulus of works and conditions that, obviously, have had their impact on the volume of suburban travelers. At the moment, the capital has works that affect shot traffic in the northern part of La Castellana, in the M-30 as it passes through sales and at the entrance of the A-5. This last work directly affects the buses that come from Móstoles, Alcorcón and other nearby towns, leaving passengers at the four -wind station where They are distributed between nearby and the subway. But, in addition, the partial closure of Metro Line 6, one of the busiest in the city since it is part of a wide ring that surrounds the entire center of it is added. In total, there are 120 people that Metro has deployed for this task. “They are technicians or line bosses, among whose functions this is,” they point out from the company to eldiario.es. Reinforcement? Obviously, seeing the images, The reinforcements in the Madrid Metro They have focused the political and social debate. What we know is that line 5 and 10 saw their frequency increased by 9% on the occasion of the works of the A-5 (adding to the nearby reinforcements and the special bus services). Subsequently, new reinforcements were secured in both lines (of 14% and 11%, respectively) with the closure of line 6. In line 1, the reinforcement is 14%, on line 3 of 13%and in line 2 of 6%. Likewise, in lines 4, 8 and 12 they have also added more trains to the usual frequencies. The doubt, therefore, is whether they are enough. The images of travelers in the middle of peak is more firewood for the political debate in a city that tries to live with the works daily. Photo | Erell Ceridwen and Raúl Hernández González In Xataka | There is a competition to tour the 274 Madrid Metro stations in the shortest possible time. And new record is already sought

Neither London, nor New York, nor Tokyo. The largest city in the world is a place that you have never heard

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We recently told something we sensed, but there were no data to confirm it. For a long time it was thought that we were 8,000 million people on the planet, but a study calculated that we had left Between 1,000 and 3,000 million along the way. It is not a trivial figure, and gives an idea of ​​the “massification” of people on earth. If we add to this that most live in cities, the thing is complicated a little more. In fact, there is only one city that has two records: it is the bigger and the most populatedand possibly you had never heard of her. Colossal and unknown. To the question of the world’s largest city, many candidates may be repeated: London, New York, Tokyo… However, none of those well -known cities really holds the title, neither by total nor surface population. No, the true urban giant is found in China and is a name that the general public is unknown: Chongqing. This monumental metropolis, located in the geographical heart of the country, where the Yangtsé and Jialing rivers cross, has not only become the city with the greater number of inhabitants in its jurisdiction, but also in the most extensive on the planet, with More than 82,400 square kilometersan extension comparable to entire countries such as Ireland or Austria. Context. However, its real size is not easily perceived from the outside, this occurs especially because much of Its territory is ruraland because its urban structure challenges all cartographic logic, built on steep slopes, deep valleys and high urban platforms that force its residents to move between tunnels, phones, stairs, elevators and catwalks that intersect as in an endless vertical dream. A three -dimensional city. More than a flat city, Chongqing is a three -dimensional urban phenomenon, as vertical as expansive, as abruptly as unbeatable. In fact, He told the Guardian Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright when describing his experience there Like a mixture Between the Inception movie and a snake and stairs game. In Chongqing, what seems like the ground floor can actually be the roof of a thirty -story building, and moving a few apples can involve changing levels five times. Its urban design, far from following a classic pattern, Respond to the mountainous topography which forces the neighborhoods clinging to the cliffs since the subway lines cross housing buildings. In such a context, even maps lose meaning: the city is only understood in motion, from within and in all directions. The Chinese city in dusk More than an inflated statistic. Plus: Although it may seem that its classification as “the greatest” is based on administrative technicalism, the argument goes beyond the mere surface. While the urban area occupies a much smaller portion of the total, More than 70% of the population (about 33 million inhabitants) lives within that area concentrated, a figure that exceeds any other city in the world. In addition, Chongqing is not a recent experiment or a planned city overnight: its history goes back to More than 3,000 yearswith a key role as regional capital, strategic river port and even logistics node before the Qing dynasty. The city already had more than two million inhabitants before the economic reforms of 1968 that opened China to the globalized world. From that moment on, growth It was vertiginous: 6.3 million in 1979, 13.9 million in 1983 and almost 29 million in 1997. The urbanized “China”. If you want too, Chongqing symbolizes the perfect model of Intensive urbanization That China has promoted in recent decades, with a state machinery that has doubled the urbanization rate of the country in twenty years, and that projects to reach 70% of urban population by 2050. Moreover, four of the five largest cities in the world by population within its administrative limits They are today in Chinareflex of a national process that has merged economic development with urban planning on a continental scale. Within that framework, the enclave not only represents a statistical feat, but a key piece of Chinese economic and territorial gear, a kind of megalopolis built on the basis of public investment, administrative reorganization and forced mobility towards urban poles. Touching roof. It is the last of the legs to analyze: its future. Like that of many other Chinese cities, he faces a new reality that we have gone counting: Stagnation and posterior Demographic decline of the country. Despite its colossal size and its central role in the economic growth of the nation, it may have already reached its maximum point. The new generations, less numerous and With other goals and valuesThey could reduce the expansion pressure that its recent history has defined. That said, even if it does not grow anymore, Chongqing will continue to be a unique city: with 33 million people And a territory that covers more than some states and countries combined, the city of impossible heights and asymmetric densities is already, in its own right, one of the most extreme urban expressions that humanity has conceived. Image | JUUKEIHC, Kristoffer Trolle In Xataka | We thought we were 8,000 million people throughout the planet. Until some researchers began to make numbers In Xataka | In Japan there is no doubt that they live worse than 30 years ago. Literally, houses are getting smaller and smaller

While the population of Japan sinks irremediably, Tokyo grows. There is an explanation: Ikkyoku Shūchū

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Much of the world has a short and medium term problem, a problem called demography. The fertility rate from various countries It is poor and birth has plummeted in many of them. Asian countries as South Korea, China either Taiwan They suffer this problem, but we cannot talk about demographic winter without mentioning Japan. While the country struggles to achieve the rate that guarantees the generational relief, they are being seen and wishing so that companies have labor. Giants like McDonald’s have changed its contracting policiesthey are putting to work To robots And, due to the lack of childreneven diaper companies have started Look at the adult diapers sector. And, while dealing with that problem, another has been hitting the door for years: the Excessive centralization of the archipelago in a city: Tokyo. And this excessive centralization has a name: Ikkyoku Shūchū. Japan disassembles Ikkyoku Shūchū It is a Japanese term that refers to centralization of the country. This implies that there is an excessive concentration at a very specific point that is not only given because they are born more babies at that point or receive more immigration, but because other areas of the country are emptied because they move to the city that brings together … everything. In the Japanese case, that city is Tokyo, the great city that, for decades, has accumulated industry, administrative functions, political, tourism and, obviously, population. As they point in The Japan Timeswhile the rest of the country waning, Tokyo grew. This has caused a huge demographic imbalance because, obviously, the area around it lost population, but also other locations throughout the country. And the implications of this are huge. To begin with, an economic disparity is created because Everything is concentrated in the big cityso the gap in economic activities is increasing between the capital and the rest of the country. For the citizen, this translates into money and time, since everything is more expensive, transport services and public services are more saturated and teleworking is not always possible. Ichinono, a town with more dolls than neighbors It is also a problem for the rest of the region, since those municipalities that are running out of population cannot maintain essential services and either attract young people who want to work. In fact, what we have seen is that the way to attract couples to that “emptied Japan” is through incentives for you to form a family And have children. There are others cases successful, but also related to the entire world of promoting family creation. Plans against him Ikkyoku Shūchū This phenomenon is sad, since it ends with the smallest peoples and, precisely, in Japan we saw an example of a town in which there are More dolls than people. Due to the lack of services, there are locations that have gone to work. An example is Ina, what implement A telemedicine service that uses drones to facilitate medicines to the elderly. Another is Kamiyama, a town that lost 70% of its population and is achieving Attract companies thanks to the development of high -speed Internet. From the government they have also put themselves to Identify the needs to mitigate the phenomenon of the Ikkyoku Shūchū and promote Decentralization. In January of this year, El País presented a plan of action which will seek to promote economic and social growth through the redistribution of government functions throughout the country. In addition, there is the call ‘Regional Reform 2.0’ that seeks to promote a stronger economy of the different regions and reduce the excessive population concentration of the capital. The end is, according to Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, help all people reach happiness. And it is a continuation of the 2016 Regional Revitalization Act that seeks to encourage the implementation of industry and services away from Tokyo to attract population to those other nuclei. It is a beautiful objective for a future that does not look too well if things continue as until now. The estimate is that, of the 124 million Japanese of 2023, in 2100 There will be 63 million and, in addition, very aging, making the entire social security system impracticable. Image | Timo Volz In Xataka | Demographers have been wondering for centuries when the human population will stop growing. It already has an answer: 2080

Tokyo has four times more population than Madrid and traffic jams are non -existent. The secret is called Shako Shomeishho

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Spain has an extension of 506,030 square kilometers And they live 48.35 million people. Japan has an area of 377,974 square kilometers where 124.5 million people live. In the city of Madrid it is calculated that they live 3.23 million peoplewhile in Tokyo a total of 14.22 million people. The difference is even more striking if we take into account population density. In Madrid they live 5,265.91 hab./km², while Tokyo rises to 6. 501.58 hab./km². Which of the two cities is hell to drive? If you throw one eye to photographs of Japanese citiesyou will have realized that there are a lot, many people walking and in public transport. But how many cars do you see on the street? The answer is simple: very few. If we attend to the 2020 dataSpain had in use 29,875,896 million cars, while in Japan 76,702,773 cars were counted. How can it be that a country with a much lower surface and that walks to triple our population Don’t be a car hell If you have a car density per person very similar to ours (629 cars/1,000 inhabitants for Spain for the 609 cars/1000 inhabitants for Japan)? They have achieved, of course, limiting to the force the number of cars that can be possessed in the big cities where, by logic, a greater number of cars should accumulate. As? The secret is Shako Shomeishho Although the density of car per inhabitant is very similar to the Spanish, the truth is that it collapses if we focus on large cities. In Japan it is estimated that each home has 1.06 cars of the total. That figure collapses to the 0.32 vehicles per household In Tokyo. The great Japanese city is, in fact, the rich city where the car is used. According to Deloitteonly 12% of the daily journeys in Tokyo are carried out by car, while 17% are bicycle. Figures that are not understood without two express prohibitions: that of parking on the street and buying a car … without space to park it. And a little luck. Andre Sorensen, professor of urban planning at the University of Toronto, says that part of Tokyo’s success to get this low vehicle density begins by a chance. At the beginning of the 20th centuryjust 15% of the Japanese lived in cities. That figure is now 91%. Tokyo (above) and Rotterdam (below) two examples of cities rebuilt after World War II. Source: Google Maps The explosion came with the end of World War II. The cities were razed and the growth in Tokyo was so chaotic that the buildings began to grow without control, some glued to others. You can compare with Google Maps photographs how Tokyo grew, completely uncontrolled with countless tiny plots, and how Rotterdam grew, with a planning studied to combine green areas in residential areas. Sorensen explains that this population explosion caused the flowering of narrow streets that hindered the passage and storage of the vehicles themselves. The wave of workers to the cities forced the institutions They will turn off with public transport And in 1957 the first measure was taken to regulate the use of the car in cities. And, with rebound, a good reason to discourage its use. Since then a law is applied that prevents the car on the street. What is usual in any European city, in Japan it is strictly prohibited. The fine is also no nonsense. They apply sanctions of up to 200,000 yen for leaving the car irregularly parked what is a fine of more than 1,200 euros. Just a few years later, in 1962 the Shako Shomeishho. This name refers to the certificate that the buyer of a car has to present when acquiring the vehicle. With him it is guaranteed that this person has a place to park the car. That is, it has a parking space to park the car every night. If you don’t have a garage, you will be forbidden to buy a car. The Kei Cars, like this Daihatsu Copen, do not need to have a parking certificate except in Tokyo and Osaka This Shako Shomeisho does not apply to Kei Carsthe small Japanese cars that measure less than 3.4 meters in length, 1.48 meters wide and 2.0 meters high and with motors of less than 660 cc that cannot exceed the 64 hp of power. Of course, in the larger cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, the obligation to have the garage certificate to get a vehicle is also applied. The Shako Shomeishho has triggered the price of the land of parking lots. In fact, the expensive thing is not to buy a car, the expensive thing is to get the possibility of buying a car. Is Something similar to what happens in Singapore With a subtle difference: there are spaces available to park cars in Tokyo that are sold for more than one million euros and in the ads themselves the yield that can be taken out allowing the rental of vehicles per hour is reflected. And you have to keep in mind that Not all parking lots are valid. The garage to save the car must be less than two kilometers from the usual residence and to get the certificate, it must be able to corroborate this with plans or even require the entry and exit measures of the garage. If the car is too large, the buyer can have problems for the authorities to approve the certificate and have nowhere to park … or rent it. The solution can go through rent the garages But there are neighborhoods where monthly rentals can easily go above 500 euros (about 77,000 yen). In some very specific places in the most expensive neighborhoods, the spaces They are quoted with rents above 700 euros (110,000 yen). How could it be otherwise, the houses for sale are offered with triggered prices when the “central” combiance and “parking space” shake hands. With offers that exceed 3.5 million euros (550 million yen) … Read more

The world’s largest elevator has more space than many floors in Tokyo

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The skyscrapers have obsessed us for centuries. There are plenty of examples like The Italian Manhattan almost 1,000 years ago, Manhattan herselfthe Burred that rose in China or what is erecting in Dubai. Whenever the construction of a new skyscraper is announced, something that comes to mind is: and the elevators … what? They are elements that can go unnoticed, but that is something that does not happen to huge elevator of the Jio World Center tower. Not only is it the largest elevator in the world, but it has the small floor size and capacity for more inhabitants than many PEOPLES OF SPAIN EMPTY. But it is not the only hyperascensor that attracts attention. A bus without wheels. This elevator has no its own name, but, definitely, it deserves it. Created by the Finnish company Kone, the Jio World Center elevator in Mumbai has the capacity to house up to 235 people simultaneously. It is an absolute barbarity that has been designed to offer a transport as comfortable as possible for those who use it. Not only does the decoration attract attention, with large windows and a sophisticated roof with design lamps, but it has its own ventilation system so that the route is as pleasant as possible even at maximum load. The elevator floor also has a very careful pattern and we only miss the occasional sofa to rest. Space is left over, of course. Huge. Because the dimensions are recorded, with its weight of 16 tons and its surface of 25.78 m². It has several access doors to expedite the flow of users and the windows serve to have passengers have a panoramic view of both the convention center in which it is located and its gardens. It only operates on five floors, but that does not make this elevator a real monstrosity. If you are wondering how the security measures, those responsible announced that the system is supported by 18 pulleys and the cabin moves on rails fixed in steel columns. The goal is for transportation to be as comfortable as possible, without accelerons or brakes. And all this is remotely monitored to avoid dislikes. Your building is not far behind. The elevator is colossal, but its building is no less. He Jio World Center It is a space dedicated to great conventions. It is the largest in India and its exterior and interior design has no waste. Is not the only one. Now, one thing must be clarified: that of the Jio World Center is the largest elevator for people in the world both by weight and charging capacity, but there is a set that has nothing to envy: that of the office building UMEDA JANKYU In Osaka, Japan. Installed in 2010, these are five elevators of about 18 square meters with capacity for 80 people each. Built by Mitsubishi, these elevators have more merit by having more work than that of the Indian Convention Center and transporting almost 400 simultaneous people through 15 plants. The Bailong China, of course. But if you suspected that China, With its mega -structuresI would not have a hyperascensor in any of them, you are right. In fact, it has two. One of them, the Bailongan elevator that runs a height of 326 meters outdoors with capacity for 50 people at the same time and a speed of overwhelming three meters per second. There are three double -floor elevators that operate simultaneously and were inaugurated in 2002. Their views are imposing, since they are next to a cliff. And if we go to the industrialists… just as imposing, due to its capacity, it is the ship’s elevator of the three throats, also in China. It is an elevator that facilitates River traffic on the Yangtsé River and has a load capacity of up to 3,000 tons. Its platform is 120 meters long, 18 wide and 3.5 meters deep. It is a demential structure that raises the ships at a height of 113 meters, an operation that has between 30 and 40 minutes and that, although it seems a lot, is much faster than the traditional system of locks to pass ships from one side to another. Images | KoneJio World Center, NYX NO In Xataka | The B face of the New York skyscrapers: more than 600 kilometers of permanent scaffolds that form bonds of terror

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