What I Saw About Japanese Land Use

Tools for designing family-friendly communities in America

Author

Victor Flores
January 22, 2025

Many have lauded the remarkable experience of Japanese zoning and its potential to revolutionize American land use rules. Noah Smith's insightful observations echo my own and my observations. I want to explore how this innovative approach can significantly enhance economic outcomes and foster family-friendly cities. 

Tokyo

Despite Japan recording its lowest birth rate in 2023, Japan presents a stark contrast to America. The streets I saw were teeming with children while in the States we see articles about how there are more dogs than children in some cities.1 So why did I see so many children yet Japan’s birth rate is low and what’s so good about their land use that we should take notes? 

Let’s begin with the birth rate. Researchers have pointed to social expectations around gender expectations, a lack of job security, childcare costs, and workforce expectations that keep staff in the office.2 Some of those issues aren’t different than many of the challenges we face in the United States and we have the additional challenge of being short multiple millions of housing units and living in severely disconnected communities. These two things exacerbate America’s own birth decline. We also might not see children because communities aren’t designed for them. They’re driven from point A to point B and then cloistered within the home. Perhaps we can address some of these issues with a tool most people never think about, land use.

I visited Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe this past November. We saw children walking, in strollers, or on bikes everywhere at any time of the day. Most parks were full of kids running around, playing, and screaming. We found a book fair in Kyoto on the Umekōji-Kyōtonishi Station plaza between the Kyoto Rail Museum and a playground. This area was hardly the densest neighborhood, but it’s hard to imagine seeing this kind of density in any American suburb that markets itself as a great place to raise a family. Despite the lack of really tall buildings, the housing was dense because of the lack of setbacks, the use of multiple stories, and the occasional five or six-story point access building. These designs create a neighborhood that provides various housing options, from studios to three bedrooms, and supports public transportation and small businesses. We saw more people because the city was designed for people to get around by walking, biking, and transit.

Sumida Ward Tokyo.

The design of these neighborhoods matters because, in America, suburbs have taken the mantle of family-friendly communities. Yet, suburbs have been far more successful at isolating families in their own homes. A Japanese home may be smaller, but that’s because everything you need is in your neighborhood. In American suburbs, we try to buy all our entertainment needs for the house because going out to eat or recreate requires driving and finding parking. American culture has taught us that a car means freedom; the truth is that many of us see it as a chore. That said, a house doesn’t need everything if the neighborhood has what we need within walking distance. But if the neighborhood or community is desolate, we must make the home a house, an entertainment center, and everything else under the sun. 

Two things help create the density of homes and businesses in Japan: point access buildings and inclusive zoning. Point access buildings don’t require two staircases connected to each floor, which limits the size and designs of what can be built.3 This is why we don’t have a lot of narrow and tall buildings like we see in Japan or other non-North American cities. Inclusive zoning tells you precisely what you can’t build. Everything else is essentially allowed. In America, our zoning says what is allowed, and everything that isn’t is automatically excluded. These zoning laws are why we don’t see many mixed-use areas and why you must drive from your home to the central business district or business park in our suburbs and cities. When it’s time for shopping, you must go to one area with only retail businesses. This separation of uses is also known as Euclidean Zoning. These two American choices make short, horizontal, and distant communities the default design. It leads us to spend so much time doing a significant chore–driving. 

Shibuya Tokyo.

The average cost of owning and operating one vehicle is about $12,000 a year. That’s about $1,000 a month on transportation expenses. “Drivers reported spending an average of 60.2 minutes per day driving in 2022,” according to the AAA Foundation For Traffic Safety, and 30% of the trips by survey respondents were for running errands. Unfortunately, our decision to restrict housing in the urban core where all the jobs and amenities are has resulted in super commuting. This term refers to traveling 90 minutes or more back and forth. This financial and opportunity cost means that many adults must spend their resources on being stuck in a car rather than investing them in their family. 

What can we do?

  1. Zoning: We could take zoning away from cities to prevent NIMBYism. That might be too drastic, so an alternative is to change zoning rules to be inclusive rather than exclusive. State funding could also incentivize mixed-used zoning, walkable neighborhoods, and multi-modal transportation options, inspiring and motivating us to create a more inclusive and accessible urban environment.

  2. Building codes: We need single-stair reform. Allowing point access buildings means we can build a wider variety of buildings, including tall and thin ones, on small parcels.4 

  3. Housing finance: We need a social housing development corporation and a revolving loan fund for housing to continue adding housing units when interest rates are too high. Construction has up and down cycles due to market conditions. For example, right now despite housing streamlining laws (in California), we are experiencing a down cycle due to high interest rates.

  4. Invest in public transit: Japan's public transit system enables density and a variety of uses that make it enjoyable—prioritizing space for cars to travel and park has a negative impact on every aspect of society.5 

  5. Easier short-term actions: Some policy changes might take a while to convince cities and neighbors to accept. What could be slightly easier to start adding mixed uses is allowing for Accessory Commercial Units to be permitted by right. My friend Muhammad Alameldin and East Bay For Everyone are working on this in Berkeley and Oakland. These commercial spaces will benefit neighbors by making commercial businesses like corner stores accessible and convenient to walk to. It will also help property owners by giving them a source of revenue through leasing or starting businesses. Cities will also benefit from the increased property values and sales these businesses generate.

If a community allowed a wider variety of uses and building designs, we could provide the services and amenities families need in the neighborhood. Parents could walk or bike their kids to child care or a park instead of chauffeuring them around from one end of a town to the other. Families could cut down from four cars to two or one. Jobs would no longer be centered in one business district but could grow across different parts of the community, giving workers options on where to live that’s close to their jobs. By limiting ourselves, we’ve chained ourselves to building communities and habits that are isolated, farther apart, and more expensive but marketed as providing family-friendly and affordable communities. 

Thanks for reading, talk soon!

-Victor Flores

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