Recent Japanese Houses

week4

     Hello!
     I will tell you about the recent situation of Japanese houses.
     The total number of houses in Japan is 57.59 million and the total number of households in Japan is 49.97 million. Approximately fifty five percent of the total number of houses in Japan is a detached house, approximately three percent of them is a tenement house, and approximately forty two percent of them is an apartment. Moreover, when classifying houses of Japan with regard to their structure, about twenty seven percent of the total number of houses in Japan is a wooden house, about thirty two percent of them is a wooden and fire-proofed house, and about thirty three percent of them is a reinforced steel-framed concrete house. The national average size of house in Japan per house is about eighty eight square meters, and the national average number of rooms per house is about 4.7 rooms. In addition, the ratio of owned houses is about sixty percent. However, there is a great difference between the city and the country in how to build houses, size of houses, the ratio of owned houses. For example, in Tokyo, the number of apartments is more than the number of datached houses, and takes up about sixty seven percent of the total number of houses in Japan. In the size of houses, compared to about fifty nine square meters in Tokyo and about sixty seven square meters in Osaka, the size of houses in Toyama is one hundred fifty one square meters and the size of houses in Akita is one hundred thirty five square meters. The ratio of owned houses in Tokyo is the lowest in Japan and about forty one percent, and the ratio of owned houses in Osaka is the second lowest in Japan and about forty nine percent. The ratio of owned houses in Toyama is the highest in Japan and about eighty percent, and the ratio of owned houses in Akita is the second highest in Japan and about seventy seven percent. In short, we can say that  many people live in rental narrow apartments because, in urban area such as Tokyo, the price of land is high and the population is dense. By the way, an apartment has become higher. The highest apartment in Japan is a house of height of two hundred meters and a fifty four stories house in Osaka.
      In the period of rapid economic growth that began in the 1950s, Japan became a housing shortage of population because the population centered at urban area, so a lot of apartments began to be built in order to supply a large amount of housing. After that, not only a rental apartment but also a condominium appeared. At the same time, the number of the nuclear family rapidly increased, for many young people left thier parents and moved to urban areas. In 1955, the ratio of the nuclear family was as many as that of the three-generation households, but, in 1980, the ratio of the nuclear family became sixty percent and the ratio of the three-generation households became sixteen percent. Then, the ratio of the three-generation households has decreased, while the ratio of single-person households has increased.