A study on the housing and environment of foreign residents in Tokyo (2)

This study's objective is to clarify the housing and living environment problems of foreigners living in Tokyo—especially those “newcomers,” who are rapidly increasing in number recently—by conducting research on their everyday life, housing conditions and living styles, living environment, and relationships with local communities. Two studies have been made, one by architects and planners and the other by sociologists. This is the second general study of its kind, following the one made last year. This year we conducted more detailed surveys in the Shinjuku area (1 chome, 2 chome, and 3 chome Kita Shinjuku, 1 chome and 2 chome Hyakunincho, and 1 chome and 2 chome Ookubo), the district which has the strongest gravitation of foreigners in Tokyo. By focusing on the mechanism of drawing such a large number of foreigners to live in old ramshackle wooden rental apartments in the district and on the relationship between rebuilding of old apartments and the movement of foreign residents, architects and planners made clear the process of how the transformation the town changed the attributes of Japanese and foreign residents, as well as the living environment in the district. The work was done through many interviews with owners of rental apartments, residents, and real estate agents. As a result, this survey disclosed important problems that must be solved in order to promote improvement of the living environment in urban inner areas. Rebuilding certainly improved the environment in terms of hardware, while at the same time, it had a big influence on the surroundings because of changes that resulted in the administrative system for apartments. Sociologists, moving their survey tract from Ikebukuro to Shinjuku this year, conducted interviews with 158 foreigners living in the district. Because Shinjuku differs in character from Ikebukuro and has a larger foreign population, the research in Shinjuku showed a new cross section of their lifestyles in Japan. It revealed not only their actual housing conditions but also the fact that many of them were getting married and settling down in Japan, often making this country a stepping-stone for a future plan to move to the U.S. or some other country.