Housing Reconstruction in War-Damaged Cities: The Creation and Distribution of Living Spaces in the Late 1940s Under Postwar Governmental Controls

This article examines the history of housing reconstruction in postwar Japan, that is, the construction of urban residential housing following Japan’s defeat in World War II, providing a historical account of the reconstruction of war-damaged housing from the perspective of the creation and distribution of private residential space under Japan’s postwar regulatory regimes. Methodologically, rather than examining the “postwar housing shortage” using the framework of the prewar, peacetime “housing shortage”, this article argues that the postwar housing situation was an historically unique situation different from the preceding and subsequent eras. The article systematically examines the process under which Japan’s regulatory regime created and distributed non-commercial, residential housing, during a period when various controls blocked the formation of a system based on commercial supply. It assesses this process in terms of the destruction of the supply structure and changes in the ownership structure. In terms of the creation of non-commercial, residential housing, the article shows how government-controlled materials, capital and residential land were used. Finally the article describes the role of nepotism in the distribution of non-commercial, residential housing, on a rental basis to all levels of society.