What a Suite Deal! Recession Forces Permanent Residencies At Japanese Capsule Hotel
(h/t Mike at BAGnewsNotes) NY Times:
When Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 opened nearly two decades ago, Japan was just beginning to pull back from its bubble economy, and the hotel’s tiny plastic cubicles offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home.
Now, Hotel Shinjuku 510’s capsules, no larger than 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide, and not tall enough to stand up in, have become an affordable option for some people with nowhere else to go as Japan endures its worst recession since World War II.
Once-booming exporters laid off workers en masse in 2009 as the global economic crisis pushed down demand. Many of the newly unemployed, forced from their company-sponsored housing or unable to make rent, have become homeless.
Those little cubbies--hardly bigger than the crate in which my lab sleeps--don't come cheap. According to the article, the upper cubbie costs the equivalent of $640 a month. Ouch. And that's an relatively affordable option.
Still, it is a bleak world where deep sleep is rare. The capsules do not have doors, only screens that pull down. Every bump of the shoulder on the plastic walls, every muffled cough, echoes loudly through the rows.
Each capsule is furnished only with a light, a small TV with earphones, coat hooks, a thin blanket and a hard pillow of rice husks.
Most possessions, from shirts to shaving cream, must be kept in lockers. There is a common room with old couches, a dining area and rows of sinks. Cigarette smoke is everywhere, as are security cameras. But the hotel staff does its best to put guests at ease: “Welcome home,” employees say at the entrance.
“Our main clients used to be salarymen who were out drinking and missed the last train,” said Tetsuya Akasako, head manager at the hotel.
But about two years ago, the hotel started to notice that guests were staying weeks, then months, he said. This year, it introduced a reduced rent for dwellers of a month or longer; now, about 100 of the hotel’s 300 capsules are rented out by the month.
After requests from its long-term dwellers, the hotel received special government permission to let them register their capsules as their official abode; that made it easier to land job interviews.
I always stay at those in Japan, but I would NOT want to live in one.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
What about using shipping containers like houses? a container park, a cheaper alternative then trailer parks.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I don't give a toss.
IIRC.
me-oww!
Containers are stackable. Could do a highrise thingie.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
If stacked higher than the Burj Khalifa (828m)it would be a record as well. That would be cool, wouldn't it?
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
I don't give a toss.
than the packed out Honda Wagon the new neighbours in my hood are living in.
me-oww!
I guess they're better than the old Hoovervilles.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
It fits right in with their plan to save Social Security by increasing the retirement age to 85.
And lets not forget how they will save health care; by increasing co-pays to 75%, and cutting coverage in half.
Man, what a swell bunch of people.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
and they are a lot better than the New Bushvilles too.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Talking about a capsule hotel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQzvy0iClZk
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Looks like that's about it, in a capsule.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Coming to a country near you.
"Anyone that makes less than $150K in this country, has no business voting Republican."
Eight years ago, I briefly visited Japan and came across dozens of people sleeping or preparing to sleep on the floor of a train station. With the cost of living so high in Japan, many people fall by the wayside when they can no longer make ends meet. At least with the capsule hotels, the residents at least have some amenities (such as bathrooms and showers) that most homeless don't have access to.
What I've found odd in Japan, is people build shanties in public places, but they don't seem to get driven out. They must be the rich ones though, as many people do sleep in train stations and on the street.
A capsule means you still have some money. Sure, it sucks, but it's one rung above train station.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
Who's poodle did they have to kick out?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Wow... Party tonight at Shinjuku's 'place'!
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Bring your own capsule?
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
If you're in Shinjuku there's no need to sleep: the place never stops!!!
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
was a corporate metaphor....
... people living in cubicle box motels... and they have to pay for it... is that not slave labor or what... what else can that be!?
And I'm guessing this trend will continue since it is better than living in the mud and trees.... if you have no other survival skills left.
Lucky bastards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG63OtsKC7k
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
kintaro would know what to do.
a few times; btw -- the bath is a larger than any jacuzzi you've ever been in.
Another option used by the increasing numbers of underemployed in Japanese cities is all-night internet cafes, which feature cubicles, free drinks, and showers, and are considerable cheaper (though less comfortable) than capsule hotels.
Really, the downsides to living in a capsule hotel would be: no where to put much stuff, nowhere to take a girlfriend, pervasive cigarette smoke, and having to live off of diner, vending machine, and convenience store provisions.
Some poster up-thread made reference to co-pays of 75%. He's got it just about assbackward: mandatory state health insurance pays 70% of health care costs. Same poster also made reference to an 85 year retirement age, so maybe he was just joking around.
Another mentioned the homeless situation here. In fact they do get moved out of the parks from time to time, but it doesn't happen all that often. Panhandling is very infrequent in Tokyo but it happens from time to time. The same guy asks me for money at Shibuya station a couple times a year...
I think you misunderstood it. He wasn't saying that the Japanese government is increasing the co-pays to 75% and raising the retirement age to 85 -- he was clearly saying (by means of a reply to another post which suggested that perhaps cubicle hotels represent a Republican housing plan) that 75% co-pays and a retirement age of 85 is probably what the GOP right here at home has in mind for the rank-and-file hoi palloi.
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
...but the fact is that a somewhat similar situation exists right here in the good ol' US of A.
Two months ago, the Village Voice carried a story about a building near New York's Chinatown (reportedly a relic from the bygone era of boarding houses) in which a number of Chinese immigrants have been paying $100 per month to live on one floor which has been subdivided into cubicles with eight-foot walls but no ceilings. Some of the residents have apparently lived there for more than a decade because the jobs they hold don't pay enough to permit living anywhere else (especially in a city as horrendously expensive as New York).
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-11-03/news/t...
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
The next level is jumping in front of a train.
It's a daily occurrence on several train lines in Tokyo.
I'm practically ready to do it myself...
Or move back to the states and get a 357 retirement plan. It's not cheaper but it's faster than a rope.
I'm saving my last thousand just for that...
Get it now, thanks...
Living in capsule hotels was SO 90s. In the oughts, most poor Tokyoites live in internet cafes. They pay less money than capsule hotels and they get a private booth with a sofa or a comfortable chair to sleep in. Many internet cafes have showers as well.
"Better." It's what we should ask of ourselves and of our leaders.
So many buildings are standing empty in large cities, that agents might want to rent cubicles at that rate, just to pay the utility bills, mortgages, and exorbitant property taxes. It'd be a deal for the working poor and for the landlord.
And you don't have a conviction for parking your automotive home on private property, to keep you out of work.
Only this AM, one newsletter recommended purchasing Japanese stocks over the next ten years. Looks like their market, as well as ours, is being subsidized by workers doing three peoples' jobs, and temp or part-time workers juggling a slew of minimum-wage McJobs.
Holy shit! Human bees!
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