Korea, a housing market I have some familiarity with, has something like the land readjustment model described for Japan.
In Korea, the formation of a community organization to readjust the land tends to be a catalyst for the adjustment to happen. It only takes a few YIMBYs to create the community organization in the first place. Then, it hits the news that the organization exists. Prices in the reorganization area go up as people who want in on the reorganization buy from the (smaller) number of people who decide they aren't interested and sell out.
The large ecosystem of people (real estate firms, design firms, financial institutions, law firms, first time home buyers who want to lock in a place for when they are 'ready', etc) who benefit from reorganization create momentum for a reorganization to be negotiated and then happen.
Often the people that started the community organization get democtratically overthrown by a new coalition of owners in the community, often from the influx of new owners who came in when the news of the community organization broke. This can happen several times through the process if enough owners become unhappy with the process, each election being vibrantly contested.
Normally, the community ends up wanting something more ambitious than is compatible with some overall city plan and the City bureaucracy intervenes to dial back the ambition of the community organization - though too much of that has costs for local politicians at the next municipal election.
The material you attached was excellent and far more than my knowledge, which comes from accidental experience of owning a small property in Seoul that happened to end up in a reorganization zone. As the registered owner, I am inundated with material from the association, related organizations and even dissidents (who always argue the association leadership isn't ambitious enough). If I don't sell, my vote is important. Almost like a stock price, I can see what my property is worth. Many interested buyers await for someone like me to sell, for my property will become a significant share of a decent modern apartment.
Everyone is trying to max out what can be done with the land and has their schemes, of various plausibility, to somehow overcome the City rules that would moderate the association's ambition.
In a sense, the entire community has become the real estate developer who wants to maximize what they can build on the land. The community even chose the developer, after a vigorous competition among developers. The developer makes their money by selling the extra units created by the reorganization, beyond what the existing community is entitled to. If the community owners are entitled to 3,000 apartments in the reorganization, but the new development would contain 8,000 apartments as well as high end retail and commercial, you can see the incentives.
Anyone uninterested would quickly sell as the value an interested party would place on the zone would clearly be in excess of the value placed by someone uninterested. That, in a nutshell, is how the incentives align to get to community consensus on ambitious reorganizations. Even the uninterested see how the reorganization increases their property value, so the NIMBYs who don't sell decide to act super-YIMBY as a way to increase the price they can sell out for.
Neighbours look in envy at what is happening and curse their luck at being on the wrong side of the boundary. Some then work together to set up their own community association.
I think this is an extremely alarming article, because the LAST thing we want as a country is to go down the path of Japan, China, and other Asian countries with extremely dense housing and CATASTROPHIC, CIVILIZATION-ENDING BIRTH RATES:
Whatever zoning law ends up with huge skyscraper condos where we cram couples who decide to have, at most, 1 child, we need to fight against it tooth and nail. The evidence is overwhelming that a handful of spread out houses are the only path toward a pro-natal future.
I think the imagined relationship between housing density and birthrates is misleading; to take the case study of Israel from the above article, Bnei Brak is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and also is populated by a demographic with very high birthrates relative to the rest of Israel (which itself is far above East Asia)
But that’s rather the point—the city has a higher birthrate than the exurb, so the relationship between density and fertility isn’t really clear.
And to the point about demographic inhabitants—yes! My suspicion is that culture (specifically the social status of having children) is what drives fertility, not housing density.
Being an Orthodox Jew changes the fertility analysis just like being Amish or Mormon does. I agree culture plays a large role but religion an even bigger one and absent a massive religious revival, comparing intensely religious communities to ordinary ones is mostly useless.
The bigger factor here, imo, is whether parenthood (esp motherhood) is a positive status marker. Urbanism or a lack thereof probably don’t have much causal impact directly. In the US, Charedi Jews and the Amish both have high birthrates; they share cultural views regarding family and community, but live in wildly different housing settings (rural communities for the Amish, very dense urban** housing for Charedim)
** There are of course Charedi communities outside of NYC (eg, Kiryas Joel) but these too are relatively dense iirc.
I don't think Japanese housing density is related to population growth at all. Japanese cities have always been densely populated and that didn't stop Japan from doubling its population in the early and mid 20th century.
What caused the general collapse in fertility is something else. It could be related to regulations that make having children expensive (see e.g. the child car seat rules in the US) or a change in society that means women choose to work instead of have children or some combination
I agree that extremely dense housing is catastrophic to modern civilization, but Asian countries are not the only ones to suffer. The West has plenty of examples of large cities that are less than desirable. Examples in the United States are NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and others.
The USA portion of the Anglosphere may produce too little housing, but we also have huge areas of federal and state "public" land that could be opened for ownership and development, which should reduce the expense significantly.
Or maybe we're seeing in many cities the problem called "diseconomies of scale"? The idea that "knowledge work" would be exempt from this is a pretty common conceit.
I'm not sure I take the premise as given (though I think public involvement in land readjustment and large-scale master-planning is generally a very functional way to intensify cities).
Yes, more is better than less when it comes to housing and many other goods. But what is the right number? How many would there be in this counterfactual world?
A lot of the variation in new homes per capita in the Anglosphere is demographic - these places simply aren't ageing as fast as others. These places generally have larger homes and a higher proportion of family homes.
I don't think we should forget the cyclical nature of homebuilding. Every cycle for the past 200 years, we have complained that there aren't enough homes, only for the market to crash, then suddenly there are too many homes. Consider Ireland in the 2000s boom, or the US itself. If we blame planning for the bust, do we credit planning for the boom too?
A bit of a history lesson on centuries of complaints about housing is in this article.
Lastly, I'm not persuaded that most people would trade their large, fancy homes for Tokyo's housing outcomes. Remember, Japanese salaries are low, so of course their homes seem cheap compared to foreign salaries and when not adjusted for size/quality.
Japan is not the only country that uses land readjustment successfully? China manages it better than Japan does. Walk any wide, leafy urban street and that's obvious.
Korea, a housing market I have some familiarity with, has something like the land readjustment model described for Japan.
In Korea, the formation of a community organization to readjust the land tends to be a catalyst for the adjustment to happen. It only takes a few YIMBYs to create the community organization in the first place. Then, it hits the news that the organization exists. Prices in the reorganization area go up as people who want in on the reorganization buy from the (smaller) number of people who decide they aren't interested and sell out.
The large ecosystem of people (real estate firms, design firms, financial institutions, law firms, first time home buyers who want to lock in a place for when they are 'ready', etc) who benefit from reorganization create momentum for a reorganization to be negotiated and then happen.
Often the people that started the community organization get democtratically overthrown by a new coalition of owners in the community, often from the influx of new owners who came in when the news of the community organization broke. This can happen several times through the process if enough owners become unhappy with the process, each election being vibrantly contested.
Normally, the community ends up wanting something more ambitious than is compatible with some overall city plan and the City bureaucracy intervenes to dial back the ambition of the community organization - though too much of that has costs for local politicians at the next municipal election.
That sounds awesome. Have any reading material on the matter?
The material you attached was excellent and far more than my knowledge, which comes from accidental experience of owning a small property in Seoul that happened to end up in a reorganization zone. As the registered owner, I am inundated with material from the association, related organizations and even dissidents (who always argue the association leadership isn't ambitious enough). If I don't sell, my vote is important. Almost like a stock price, I can see what my property is worth. Many interested buyers await for someone like me to sell, for my property will become a significant share of a decent modern apartment.
Everyone is trying to max out what can be done with the land and has their schemes, of various plausibility, to somehow overcome the City rules that would moderate the association's ambition.
In a sense, the entire community has become the real estate developer who wants to maximize what they can build on the land. The community even chose the developer, after a vigorous competition among developers. The developer makes their money by selling the extra units created by the reorganization, beyond what the existing community is entitled to. If the community owners are entitled to 3,000 apartments in the reorganization, but the new development would contain 8,000 apartments as well as high end retail and commercial, you can see the incentives.
Anyone uninterested would quickly sell as the value an interested party would place on the zone would clearly be in excess of the value placed by someone uninterested. That, in a nutshell, is how the incentives align to get to community consensus on ambitious reorganizations. Even the uninterested see how the reorganization increases their property value, so the NIMBYs who don't sell decide to act super-YIMBY as a way to increase the price they can sell out for.
Neighbours look in envy at what is happening and curse their luck at being on the wrong side of the boundary. Some then work together to set up their own community association.
I think this is an extremely alarming article, because the LAST thing we want as a country is to go down the path of Japan, China, and other Asian countries with extremely dense housing and CATASTROPHIC, CIVILIZATION-ENDING BIRTH RATES:
https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1833662042839949402
Whatever zoning law ends up with huge skyscraper condos where we cram couples who decide to have, at most, 1 child, we need to fight against it tooth and nail. The evidence is overwhelming that a handful of spread out houses are the only path toward a pro-natal future.
If you think the evidence is overwhelming, please link some. Note: your current link isn't an example of that.
I think the imagined relationship between housing density and birthrates is misleading; to take the case study of Israel from the above article, Bnei Brak is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and also is populated by a demographic with very high birthrates relative to the rest of Israel (which itself is far above East Asia)
That’s one city only. Not a great comparison. Also is it inhabited by a religiously fecund group?
But that’s rather the point—the city has a higher birthrate than the exurb, so the relationship between density and fertility isn’t really clear.
And to the point about demographic inhabitants—yes! My suspicion is that culture (specifically the social status of having children) is what drives fertility, not housing density.
One case may be the exception, not the rule.
Being an Orthodox Jew changes the fertility analysis just like being Amish or Mormon does. I agree culture plays a large role but religion an even bigger one and absent a massive religious revival, comparing intensely religious communities to ordinary ones is mostly useless.
The bigger factor here, imo, is whether parenthood (esp motherhood) is a positive status marker. Urbanism or a lack thereof probably don’t have much causal impact directly. In the US, Charedi Jews and the Amish both have high birthrates; they share cultural views regarding family and community, but live in wildly different housing settings (rural communities for the Amish, very dense urban** housing for Charedim)
** There are of course Charedi communities outside of NYC (eg, Kiryas Joel) but these too are relatively dense iirc.
I don't think Japanese housing density is related to population growth at all. Japanese cities have always been densely populated and that didn't stop Japan from doubling its population in the early and mid 20th century.
What caused the general collapse in fertility is something else. It could be related to regulations that make having children expensive (see e.g. the child car seat rules in the US) or a change in society that means women choose to work instead of have children or some combination
I agree that extremely dense housing is catastrophic to modern civilization, but Asian countries are not the only ones to suffer. The West has plenty of examples of large cities that are less than desirable. Examples in the United States are NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and others.
The USA portion of the Anglosphere may produce too little housing, but we also have huge areas of federal and state "public" land that could be opened for ownership and development, which should reduce the expense significantly.
Or maybe we're seeing in many cities the problem called "diseconomies of scale"? The idea that "knowledge work" would be exempt from this is a pretty common conceit.
Do Anglo countries tried not to boom demand by importing Third World-ers by the million?
I'm not sure I take the premise as given (though I think public involvement in land readjustment and large-scale master-planning is generally a very functional way to intensify cities).
Yes, more is better than less when it comes to housing and many other goods. But what is the right number? How many would there be in this counterfactual world?
A lot of the variation in new homes per capita in the Anglosphere is demographic - these places simply aren't ageing as fast as others. These places generally have larger homes and a higher proportion of family homes.
See here for example
https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/p/housing-stock-per-capita-mostly-measures
I don't think we should forget the cyclical nature of homebuilding. Every cycle for the past 200 years, we have complained that there aren't enough homes, only for the market to crash, then suddenly there are too many homes. Consider Ireland in the 2000s boom, or the US itself. If we blame planning for the bust, do we credit planning for the boom too?
A bit of a history lesson on centuries of complaints about housing is in this article.
https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/p/rent-rage-repeat-housings-predictable
Lastly, I'm not persuaded that most people would trade their large, fancy homes for Tokyo's housing outcomes. Remember, Japanese salaries are low, so of course their homes seem cheap compared to foreign salaries and when not adjusted for size/quality.
https://www.fresheconomicthinking.com/p/did-germany-and-tokyo-really-get
Japan is not the only country that uses land readjustment successfully? China manages it better than Japan does. Walk any wide, leafy urban street and that's obvious.
Japanese cities are far more pleasant than Chinese cities.
Excellent article!