New Styles of Living

Over the past 30 years, Japan has seen a dramatic shift away from three-generational
homes toward single-person households. The cost of increased privacy and independence
has been worsening isolation and social alienation. The rise in sharehouses, which have
come a long way in Japan since their initial incarnation as grotty digs for transitory
foreigners, signals an appetite for a revival of community ties.

Japan may have arrived late to the sharehouse trend, but it has created a range of inventive
communal homes reflecting diverse lifestyles, from penniless urban artists to farming
fanatics and young parents. Many of the 2,800 sharehouses across the country unite
people in a common interest, whether coding, climbing, or crocheting, or answer the needs
of underserved members of society, such as single mothers and the elderly.

Sharenest in Yokohama is one of the new breed. Initiated in 2013 by real-estate agent
Sakai Yōsuke, who wanted to re-create the warm atmosphere and wholesome cooking he
associated with his own grandmother, it offers a service called Obāchan (Grandma)
Concierge. Ino Junko, a 62-year-old woman with two young grandchildren of her own,
comes to the house three times a week to cook dinner, clean the living room, and do the
laundry. Like twenty-somethings around the world, the six residents are grateful to come
home to a nutritious dinner and freshly laundered clothes rather than instant ramen and no
clean socks.

"Obāchan concierge" Ino Junko: "I feel more energetic and lively just coming here."

“I love it when they leave me notes saying ‘That was great, thank you!’ No one ever says a
real ‘thank you’ after dinner at home,” says Ino. “It’s made my domestic work into a real job.
I feel more energetic and lively just coming here.”

Services for the Vulnerable

Chronic loneliness is a major problem among people over 65, who will account for a third of
Japan’s population by 2025. Many live alone, and that trend is set to get worse as the
number of elderly people increases: single-person dwellings are expected to account for
almost 40% of Japanese households by 2035, according to the National Institute of
Population and Social Security Research. Multigenerational sharehouses, where unrelated
newborns and 90-year-olds share a common space, may be one answer.
 The Sharenest living room shows that modern
sharehouses are far from the dimly lit dormitories many still associate with them.

“Being around other older people can be unhealthy if they only talk about illness and death,
or about how many years they have until they die. If there’s a youngster around who’s like a
grandchild, it’s very different,” says Hosoyama Masanori, the chief executive of Stone’s, a
real estate agent in Kawasaki that runs 11 sharehouses, including a multigenerational one
and four for single mothers.

Single mothers are one of the most vulnerable groups in Japan, with some 55% living below
the poverty line. Many go from being a housewife to juggling a full-time job, solo parenting,
and the emotional impact of a separation or a divorce. The Stone’s sharehouses lessen the
burden by allowing them to get support from other mothers in the same situation and
providing a babysitter once a week, while the children gain new playmates.

“Sometimes the kids get confused because some mothers get angry at them for something
that their own mother wouldn’t. But in the end they get used to it and learn that people have
different values, which is really important,” says Hosoyama. “Originally children were raised
by the community and anyone could scold someone else’s children. That doesn’t happen
much any more, but I think there are some people who want to get back to that.”

A Return to Community?
Sharehouses are reviving the traditional sense of community that existed in Japan before
the advent of American-style houses for nuclear families. The sociologist Maren
Godzik describes prewar homes as “permeable,” with people commonly visiting neighbors’
homes to use the radio, television, or even bathtub.
 Communal living can make for a crowded genkan.

In contrast, apartment buildings built since the 1950s have been characterized by
compartmentalized seclusion. And as in other industrialized countries, longer working hours
and increasingly individualism over the past few decades have caused a tendency to see
interdependency on others and the maintenance of community relations as stressful, time-
consuming, and ultimately unnecessary. The social imperative in Japan to ki o tsukau—to
always consider others’ feelings before one’s own and to act accordingly—can add further
stress to interactions, motivating people to live alone rather than have to constantly think
about the needs of their roommates.

Some, however, find the stress of isolation worse than that of having to get along with
others. Additionally, many young people are less interested in—and less able to afford—
their own home, and would prefer to share with others. Sociologists have coined the
term satori sedai, or “enlightened generation,” for those too young to experience the boom
years of the bubble economy, due to their monkish lack of desire for worldly goods.

Taking this sharing to an extreme is Shibuhouse, a collective that currently resides in a four-
story house in central Shibuya, Tokyo. Now with around 25 members, their numbers once
swelled to 50, stressing out their ad-hoc sleeping arrangement: it’s up to residents to find an
empty space in a room with wall-to-wall futons on the floor. Saitō Keita, one of the founders
of the collective, realized things were getting too crowded and halved the number of
members when some people began sleeping on the stairs. But the former family home is
still way over capacity.

Although there’s no private space, the benefits of living so ascetically is the freedom to
make art and throw parties—the group regularly puts on exhibitions and there’s a DJ booth
and event space in the basement—and to live for just ¥40,000 a month in the heart of the
vibrant Shibuya district. Fashion designers, photographers, and illustrators live shoulder-to-
shoulder, some of them splitting their time between their parents’ suburban homes, where
they go to recharge, and Shibuhouse, where they come to create.