Collapse and Reconstruction-2: Housing Policy in Kobe after the Hanshin Great Earthquake

Collapse and Reconstruction: Kobe <2>

Polarisation in Housing Recovery

There was substantial new building in the wake of the earthquake. New housing starts increased immediately and reached 4000 per month in the second half of 1995 with a peak of more than 6000 in July 1997. Then it slowly started to decline until 1998, when it dropped to fewer than 2000 per month where it has stabilized.
Figure 2 shows the transition of the rate of housing recovery. This rate is an index calculated in the following way: add the number of new units started after the earthquake to the number of remaining units, and divide the result by the number of units just before the earthquake. The recovery rate exceeded 100 per cent in January 1997, two years after the earthquake, and it reached 107 per cent in January 1998, 3 years after the earthquake. The number of units obtained through new construction rose to 121 736.
If we only look at the recovery rate in the whole city, it would appear that housing recovery has already been achieved. Not all newly constructed housing, however, has met the demands of earthquake-hit victims as it includes some for general demand, and there is a geographically unequal distribution.
There are marked differentials by ward in the recovery rate. The eastern part of the urban area was damaged severely and the percentage of housing remaining was low, but a large quantity of housing has been supplied and the recovery rate has already exceeded 100 per cent. Some of the newly supplied housing, however, has been for demand in the general market. As the eastern part of the urban area is located suitably for those who commute to Osaka, it was expected to form a housing market for middle-income people and there has been substantial new housing construction in this area. By contrast, in the western part of the urban area the proportion of housing remaining was low due to the severe damage, and housing supply after the earthquake has been stagnant. The situation in Nagata-ward is especially serious. The percentage of housing remaining fell as low as 61 per cent and the recovery rate 3 years after the event was only 82 per cent. The damage in suburbs such as Tarumi-ward, Kita-ward and Nishi-ward was relatively light and the housing stock has been steadily increasing after the earthquake.
Though new construction is generating many units, the process is not uniform. It has deepened the socio-spatial polarisation and divided the city. The peak of construction work has already passed and the differential in housing recovery is more and more fixed.
Figures 3 and 4 show the population of Kobe before and after the earthquake. It was 1.2 million in 1965, and showed a steady increase, reached 1.52 million in January 1995, just before the earthquake. The number, however, decreased by as much as 100 000 due to the disaster, and has fluctuated around 1.42 million since.
The data by ward clearly show the contrast between the growing suburbs and the declining inner-city. Taking the population in 1965 as 100, the 1995 index was over 450 in Kita-ward and Nishi-ward, whereas it has decreased to 57 in Hyogo-ward and 61 in Nagata-ward. The population increase of the whole of Kobe has been supported by the expansion of its suburbs.
These contrasts have been highlighted even more since the earthquake. The population has been on the increase in the suburbs. Taking the population of January 1995 as 100, the index in April 1998 was 108 in Kita-ward and 119 in Nishi-ward. This includes temporary dwellers, but mainly is continuing past growth. The outflow of the population from the urban area is serious. The index in April 1998 was 94 in Higashi-Nada-ward, 78 in Nada-ward, 82 in Hyogo-ward and 67 in Nagata-ward. The inner-city area, which had been declining for a long time, suffered enormous damage from the earthquake, and is in further decline.
Housing shortage and housing surplus occur simultaneously. Though a large quantity of housing has been supplied in the eastern part of the urban area, the population has not recovered. Housing is over-supplied and the vacancy rate is increasing. The development of the expected housing market has not yet been realised. In the western area housing is still in short supply. Such an imbalance characterises Kobe today.

Two-tiered Housing Policy

What role has the housing policy been playing in the reconstruction process since the earthquake? Japanese housing policy can be described as a two-tiered system. People are expected to purchase or rent their houses as a market commodity. Housing policy has focused on the expansion of owner-occupied housing by concentrating resources to moderate- to high-income groups (Hayakawa, 1990; Hirayama & Hayakawa, 1995; van Vliet & Hirayama, 1994). A low-interest loan, supplied by the Housing Loan Corporation, has been the central pillar of housing policy promoting home ownership. Measures with welfare characteristics are available for households who cannot obtain housing in the market. Public housing units built and owned by prefectural and local governments with subsidy by the central government are rented to low-income households. However, public housing is strictly for limited groups. Housing policy is made on the basis of self-help as a principle, with limited help for low-income groups.
Through cross-national comparison of rental housing policies, Kemeny (1995) suggested a division of housing policies according to a unitary and a dualist model. The unitary model mainly appears on the European Continent. It supports diverse social rental housing. The whole market can be a target of policy intervention. In contrast, the dualist model is the dominating policy in Anglo-Saxon societies, such as Britain and the USA. Although in these countries public housing is directly supplied by renting to low-income households, it is a residual system with problems such as concentration of the poor, lower physical conditions and a negative image, resulting in its separation from the general market.
Japanese housing policy coincides with the dualist model. Since the 1970s, it has become even clearer that housing policy places emphasis on the expansion of home ownership. With the oil crisis as a turning-point, housing construction has been at the center of reflationary policy, and the supply of low-interest financing by the Housing Loan Corporation has been expanded. In the 1980s, deregulation of urban planning, privatisation of public property such as national land, and the introduction of private capital into development works were vigorously promoted (Hayakawa & Hirayama, 1991). At the same time, housing supply was entrusted to market principles and low income housing policy became very restricted. Public housing construction has rapidly declined since the 1970s. The Housing and Land Committee which greatly influences housing policy issued a new report in 1995 which clearly emphasised housing as a market commodity and limited the role of public housing to welfare housing. Japanese housing policy, from the 1970s to the present time, has had the characteristics of the dualist model.
The housing recovery policy is based on the same framework as the general housing policy of Japan. The earthquake damage was so significant that the quantitative distribution between self-help housing and welfare housing has changed. A programme in which mass-construction of temporary housing shifted to mass-construction of public housing, both as welfare housing, was implemented. There is, however, no change in the characteristics of the two-tiered housing system.
In a society where the basic principle is self-help, welfare housing is justified through residualisation. Rent-free temporary housing is provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, based on the same idea as public assistance. Public housing is provided by the Ministry of Construction. Though rent is charged to reimburse the cost of land acquisition and building, and beneficiaries are to share the cost, the heavy subsidy for public housing which enables the rents to be set at a low level reflects its characteristic as public welfare. Housing provision as welfare could, however, cause critical social tension and conflict with the self-help principle, and its existence is always accompanied by the possibility of social and political instability. Therefore, it maintains its institutional justification by the limited selection of the target people through index-like means tests.
The housing recovery policy has socio-spatially divided earthquake victims based on the two-tiered system. In reality, the victims have diverse needs in regard to public resources: victims in need of effective support, households in need of complementary support and those with the ability help themselves. However, if the principle of self-help is applied, most of the earthquake-hit people are forced to reconstruct their houses through their own efforts and welfare housing supply necessarily becomes residual. Those in the self-help group may be in need of public support. On the other hand, victims selected for welfare would be socio-spatially segregated, which could be accompanied by stigmatisation. Disregarding the real situation of the victims, the dualist model acts as a divisive mechanism.
More over, the city finances of Kobe are stretched to the limit. This has been one factor in the promotion of the self-help policy in housing reconstruction. The City of Kobe has been raising capital by the issue of bonds to carry out a large number of development works. It has become difficult, however, to introduce private capital into development projects with the urban restructuring and economic recession in recent years. The City reclaimed the second Port-Island which adjoins the first Port-Island, but most of the new artificial island is still unsold. In recent years new towns were developed in Kita-ward, but many new houses remain unsold. When the bond redemption rate exceeds 20 per cent, it is considered that finances are heading towards a critical situation. In Kobe's case, a year before the earthquake in 1995, this rate already reached 22.5 per cent. As heavy expenditure is required for renovation works, it is estimated to reach 30 per cent in the near future. Kobe City does not therefore have the financial basis to allow large-scale intervention in housing reconstruction.

Top of this Page Contents　　　Back　　　Next　　　Contact us