There were plenty of vacant plots of land for Hiraku Ozawa to explore growing up in the city of Nagareyama, just outside of Tokyo, during the 1980s. Some were heavily vegetated, and others would frequently puddle after the rain. Many were home to a variety of flowers and insects he would spend hours admiring while fantasizing how, in a world devoid of humans, nature would rapidly reclaim ground lost to civilization.
These empty residential lots are called akichi (vacant land) in Japanese, and how they came to be neglected and unused are individual mysteries.
A growing number of akichi are abandoned by people who inherited them from relatives but saw little potential in maintaining them. Others are reserved for later use, have some kind of sacred connection (in the case of shrines and temples) or purposely act as a form of visual breathing space amid urban congestion. Many are eventually engulfed by the development around them, becoming part of neighboring homes, apartments and parking lots. Increasingly, though, they remain bare as the demand for new land ebbs along with the population.
Nevertheless, Ozawa has always felt a sense of melancholy upon seeing such vacant lots. After completing his doctorate at Musashino Art University, he revisited this long-held interest in akichi and began fieldwork, publishing articles and posting his research on his blog.
“Sometimes I find them during my commute to work or by using Google Maps, although random encounters are the best,” says the 41-year-old self-fashioned akichi researcher, who teaches drawing for a living. “Discovering them gives you the feeling the city is one big organism — that eventually everything will return to nature.”
Once you begin noticing akichi, you can’t help but see them everywhere. Whether it’s between rows of packed, prefabricated housing units, beside railroad crossings or next to glitzy high-rises, there they are: silent pockets of space offering a hint of untamed greenery in otherwise busy, gray neighborhoods.
The prospect of nature taking back areas previously surrendered to human development is very much real as Japan’s population ages and shrinks. Ozawa says he is currently observing the phenomenon in the Tokyo suburb of Ryugasaki, Ibaraki Prefecture, where he now lives. “I see more (akichi) in the older quarters of the city,” he says, “and I get the overall impression that they are increasing.”
A study published earlier this year by Tomoya Mori would seem to back Ozawa up: The Kyoto University professor warns that depopulation could lead to half of Japan’s cities disappearing by the year 2120.
While green spaces do play a vital role in urban planning, contributing to heat reduction and providing many more social, physical and environmental benefits, they must be carefully managed and maintained.
The government is worried that a proliferation of akichi will not only be an eyesore but contribute more tangibly to the deterioration of living environments: If left unattended they can evolve into makeshift garbage dumps that attract pests, hurt community morale and lessen surrounding property values.
With demand for new housing expected to slow alongside the nation’s demographic decline, the question is how to make better use of these vacant plots of land and whether the necessary resources can be procured.
“I admit the growth of akichi gives me more material to research,” Ozawa says. “But I can also understand how it could be problematic.”
Doraemon’s empty lot
Those familiar with “Doraemon,” the iconic manga series featuring a blue robotic cat from the future, might recognize a recurring setting: The local akichi, complete with a triangular-shaped pile of concrete sewage pipes in one corner, is where the main characters will often gather to play, fight or plan their next adventure.
Originally serialized in 1969, the blockbuster manga by Fujiko F. Fujio is said to be set in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward and reflects the urban realities of the postwar Showa Era (1926-89).
The 1960s and ’70s saw a period of rapid economic growth and massive infrastructure projects. The coverage rate of the sewer system, which is now 100% in Tokyo’s 23 wards, was only 48% back in 1970, for instance. Many firms used yet-to-be developed lots for temporary storage purposes — in the case of “Doraemon,” the lot was used to store cement pipes.
These akichi, once a ubiquitous sight in any city, gradually disappeared amid a construction boom that lasted until the asset price bubble popped in the 1990s. It helped that, under Japanese law, these vacant plots were taxed at a higher rate than those with buildings on them. Of course, it’s for this reason that Japan is now seeing a rapid proliferation of abandoned homes, or akiya, as owners opt to let such structures decay rather than have them demolished.
A 2022 report by the land ministry said, as of 2018, around 27% of Japan’s entire land mass, or 102,000 square kilometers, was owned by households, of which about 10,982 sq. km were designated for residential uses — the remaining majority are mostly forests and farmland.
Meanwhile, the total area of vacant plots owned by households increased more than twofold from 632 sq. km in 2008, when the nation’s population peaked, to 1,364 sq. km in 2018, pushing up the ratio of unused residential land from 6.5% to 12.4%. Around 60% of these are owned by those aged 65 or older and are often acquired through inheritance.
When looking by region, compared to major urban centers such as Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Osaka, vacant property rates have significantly increased in rural areas where depopulation is more severe. Furthermore, land prices and fixed property taxes can be significantly lower outside of big cities, incentivizing owners to leave them unused.
“There are two main issues with akichi. First, the lack of utilization of vacant land with value negatively impacts regional vitality and (the) economy,” says Takaaki Hirose, a land development officer at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
“The second issue is that leaving vacant land unattended can cause problems for nearby residents. Overgrown grass, the potential for pest infestations and littering can directly inconvenience neighbors and lead to complaints.”
What can be done? Since last October, the land ministry has been hosting policy research sessions with experts in the field to consider proposals for improving the situation.
“It's important to start utilizing such areas by introducing them back into circulation,” Hirose says. “For example, vacant residential land has been used for vegetable gardens. Initiatives like encouraging neighbors to purchase the land or similar efforts are crucial for moving toward better management of these areas.”
The approaching decline
Deaths now far outpace births in Japan — 1,590,503 to 758,631 in 2023. On top of that, the number of individuals living alone is also soaring as the population ages. According to a national census from 2020, there were 21.1 million single-person households in Japan, a 14.8% increase from the last census in 2015. Among them, nearly a third, or 6.72 million, were elderly one-person households of those age 65 or older.
“When debating the issue of abandoned homes and empty land, we need to look at the number of households rather than the total population,” says Shin Aiba, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University and a member of the land ministry’s study group on akichi.
“There’s a time lag between when the population starts to fall and the number of households begins to sag. Once the number of households begins dropping, that’s when we're really going to see more empty homes and land,” he says.
The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research forecasts that the total number of households will peak at 57.73 million in 2030 before starting to decline. Meanwhile, average household size is expected to fall below two people for the first time in 2033, reaching 1.92 people by 2050.
“Basically, the growth in old, single-person households means we’ll be seeing a lack of inheritors of property, so the idea is to match up those looking for property with those that don’t need or want them,” Aiba says, raising the example of a nonprofit called the Tsuruoka Land Bank active in the city of Tsuruoka in Yamagata Prefecture.
The initiative was established in 2012 in response to a rising number of consultation requests from vacant property owners and community demands for better land use in areas with shrinking populations.
“Tsuruoka has a long history as a castle town that developed during the reign of the Tokugawa shogunate, but that also means there are old dead-end streets, narrow lanes and awkward divisions designed to foil enemy attacks that are unfit for modern land use purposes,” says Sadahiro Namba, a consultant at Tsuruoka Land Bank.
Namba says the key feature of the Land Bank is how, with the help of various experts and agencies, it can handle complex problems like inheritance disputes, property rights conflicts, vacant housing and land issues that are often too challenging for individuals or private entities to manage alone. Financial aid from the city’s funding program supports renovation projects, for example, as well as the maintenance of local landmarks and historic districts.
While the Tsuruoka Land Bank is often considered a model case, Aiba, an expert on urban planning, says there may be limits in terms of stimulating demand for land as the population shrinks.
“What the land ministry is thinking is to use these properties for green infrastructure,” he says, referring to the deployment of greenery in urban areas to mitigate the heat island effect that can increase the risk of heatstroke and lead to the sudden, localized “guerilla” rainstorms that Japan has seen aplenty this summer.
“It’s also suggesting that these vacant lands be used as farmland.”
Communal efforts
Sumida Ward, a traditionally working-class area sandwiched between the Sumida and Ara rivers in eastern Tokyo, is home to the landmark Tokyo Skytree and known for its old-fashioned neighborhoods. It also has one of the lowest ratios of green spaces among the capital’s 23 wards, with a mere 10.7% of its total area occupied by trees and fields. (The figure for all wards combined is 24.2%, and 52.5% for the entirety of Tokyo.)
Amid a cobweb of narrow, residential alleys on the northern edge of the ward, however, is the Tamonji Community Farm, a 660 square-meter former temporary parking lot in the compounds of Tamonji temple, which was converted into farmland.
“This area was once known as Terajima and was a suburban farming village providing fresh vegetables to the people of Edo,” says Tsuyoshi Ogawa, the vice chairman of a local nonprofit that manages the property.
He says fertile soil transported from the upstream of the Sumida River was ideal for growing eggplants, leading to the production of Terajima nasu (eggplants), a variety known for its relatively small size, thick skin and firm flesh. Following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, however, the farmland was converted into residential property for disaster victims, and the eggplant disappeared.
“The idea was to revive this lost variety of eggplant and make it a symbol of the region again,” Ogawa says. They discovered that the seeds of this particular vegetable survived and were being produced by a farm in Mitaka, western Tokyo. While contemplating ways to bring back production of the eggplant to Sumida, Tamonji temple offered its rarely used parking lot for the project in 2017, leading to the opening of the community farm.
A narrow well has been dug in the compound and solar panels have been set to activate a water wheel in order to circulate flow. There are 12 plots of small farmland, of which 10 are rented out for a monthly fee to individuals and groups interested in growing plants. Every Sunday morning, those who can make it gather to help out the farmstead while chatting and exchanging information.
“These spaces are very difficult to find in Sumida Ward,” says Koji Ushiku, the chairman of the nonprofit behind the community farm and the head of a local construction firm.
“Properties facing the road are popular and almost never left vacant. And empty lots attract higher property taxes, too,” he says, one reason the community farm applied for the land to be considered a “civic green space,” a category that brings down land and city planning taxes by two-thirds.
“Nevertheless, I’d like our project to become a role model for Sumida,” Ushiku says. To that end, his association is eyeing a property around half the size of Tamonji’s on the southern end of the ward for its next project. Similar to the community farm, the plot doesn’t face the road and has been left idle.
“Sure, parks are nice too, but you can’t get your hands dirty and really experience working with the land. The kids love it when they visit our farm to help out,” Ushiku says.
While nature may not take over cities like Ozawa imagined anytime soon, it may have a bigger presence in the lives of city-dwellers as Japan’s population shrinks. Ushiku says that would suit him just fine.
“Yes, I think the way to go is to turn akichi into green spaces, into farmland.”
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