Changing Characteristics of Residents in Public Housing: A Case Study of Osaka City

Abstract

Housing supply systems have a close relationship to the characteristics of residents, especially in the sub-market of public housing. This is because there are strict regulations for applicants for public housing, and local governments mainly select tenants in regard to their income conditions. Public housing is mainly supplied by local government in order to assist lower income households. Their construction is aided by the national government in order to resolve serious housing shortages and to perform a welfare service. Recently a serious problem has occurred in public housing. This is the aging of buildings and of residents.In this study, the author tries to clarify the characteristics of residents in public housing. The characteristics of residents in public housing were analyzed by using the National Census. Is it true that housing policy gives rise to social segregation in the city? The study area is Osaka city because the ratio of public housing in Osaka city is the highest in any Japanese metropolis. And the city has large stock of public housing. Because Osaka city is famous as an early industrialized city, local government provided for a lot of migcrant people in order to resolve the lack of workers' houses. The results are summarized as follows;The residents in public housing consisted of younger households in 1970. But in 1990, the compositions of residents' age and family size were completely different. Terrible aging occurred in some old public housing. The rates of elderly families and single or 2 person (almost all elderly couples) households increased in public housing in the inner built-up area. The same phenomenon has been observed in the cases of built-up areas of Hiroshima city and Koto ward in Tokyo. The causes of aging in public housing may be summarized as follows. Firstly, many residents in public housing were long stayers. When their children grew up, many of them moved out of their parents' homes because the public houses were too small to live together in. Therefore only the aged parents were left behind, since public housing is large enough for a couple or individual to live in, and is cheap to rent.Secondly, for welfare purposes, the Public Housing Act gives priority to lower income households. In accordance with the Act, the public housing department offers accommodation to lower income households, which contain younger households, elderly and handicapped people. Consequently serious and rapid aging occurred in some public housing. Thus the Public Housing Act induced the aging of residents. This mechanism is called “the housing trap”. An extraordinary aging of residents appeared in some public housing. In the near future, aging in public housing will become more serious because there are a lot of upper-middle aged people. One solution is the reconstruction of old public housing stock, since there is some evidence that there are many younger households in reconstructed public housing in inner city.