Hover a line for its reading in kana and its translation; hover a word for its meaning. Tap 🔊 to hear it.
Generate a brand-new dialog on any topic, using this lesson's 0 vocab words — plus any words you add below.
Sign in to generate dialogues. It needs a pass — the first ten lessons of every course are free either way.
The shutters, and the eight million empty houses
Japan's population peaked in 2008 and has fallen every year since, and the fall is not spread evenly: Tokyo still grows while rural municipalities lose people in both directions, the young leaving and the old dying. The visible result is the 空き家 — roughly nine million unoccupied homes at the last count, about one dwelling in seven, many of them inherited by people in cities who cannot sell them and will not demolish them because demolition costs money and raises the land tax. The other visible result is the シャッター通り, the shuttered shopping street, which has become a standard noun. Policies exist — relocation grants, 空き家バンク listings, tax changes — and the inquiries the 女将 mentions are real. So is the arithmetic.