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Freakonomics Radio

157. Why Are Japanese Homes Disposable?

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.632K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2014

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In most countries, houses get more valuable over time. In Japan, a new buyer will often bulldoze the home. We'll tell you why.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

So let's say you're an architect and what you really like to design is single-family houses.

0:09.4

Houses with flair, with distinctive, maybe even avant-garde features, and you want to design

0:15.8

houses that will actually get built.

0:17.9

So if that's who you are, then for you, Utopia might be Japan.

0:24.6

So they make a very, very weird looking or avant-garde looking houses.

0:31.6

Well, one of... it's hard to describe, but quite avant-garde radical designs.

0:37.7

Strange looking, weird looking.

0:39.2

Living in the home is like climbing around a jungle gym or a matrix.

0:43.6

One of them was about four or five stories, but one wall was cut in such a way that the

0:52.5

floor space at the fifth level was bigger than fourth and the third in a second.

0:59.1

And it looked very unstable.

1:01.1

Of course, it's highly eye-catching.

1:03.8

They don't have handrails and stairways and balconies.

1:07.4

Three-story building can be built on maybe 500 square feet.

1:11.7

They have walls that can open entirely exposing the house to the outside.

1:16.6

The design can be very, very sharp or really, really unique.

1:21.3

And homes that have no windows at all.

1:23.3

And they were covered in this textured material that was at least to me, it was a complete

1:29.5

eyesore.

1:30.5

Or maybe for some modern artist, it was something to be proud of.

1:35.8

Okay, so if you are an architect, not only can you go wild with the design of Japanese

1:41.4

houses, but even more important, there's a lot of work.

...

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