[Special Feature: The Future of Danchi] Naoko Yamamoto: Multicultural Coexistence within Danchi

Nearly 20 years have passed since I first became involved with danchi (public housing complexes) where many foreign residents live. I have visited numerous danchi through Japanese language support volunteer activities and research. When you walk through a danchi, you encounter various scents. The smell of spices, herbs, shampoos, and perfumes... The aromas drifting through the complex differ depending on the origins of the people gathered there. Walking through these complexes, surrounded by scents one would never encounter in an ordinary Japanese residential area, I have felt the lives of people from foreign lands living in Japan. In the 2000s, a characteristic sight in danchi was the many balconies equipped with satellite dishes. From that scenery, one could see that many foreign households were receiving overseas broadcasts to watch news and other programs from their home countries.

In recent years, danchi have often been discussed as symbols of a declining birthrate and aging population, where isolation is a problem and people do not even know the faces of their neighbors. However, once you step inside, you see another side that many modern danchi possess: multinationalization and multiculturalization. They are places where people with foreign roots bring in different cultures—tastes, scents, information, and fashion from their home countries—and serve as nodes constantly connected to places across borders.

To begin with, what exactly does "danchi" refer to? Generally, "danchi" refers to the box-shaped, standardized collective housing (public corporation housing) built to solve the post-war housing shortage (Okamura 2020, Kaneko 2017). Housing shortages became severe in Japan after World War II, and even ten years after the end of the war, there was still a shortage of approximately 2.7 million homes nationwide (Yasuda 2019). In 1955, the Japan Housing Corporation (now UR Urban Development) was established to alleviate the housing shortage and improve the living environment. By 1958, large-scale danchi were being constructed, and people began moving in. The fact that many danchi found across the country are five-story buildings without elevators is due to the circumstance that they were built in large quantities over a short period with the primary goal of quickly resolving the severe housing shortage (Yasuda 2019). Many households wished to move into danchi, which were sunny and had environments suitable for raising children, such as schools and shops, and the lottery for residency had very high odds. The fact that many of the residents at the time were schoolteachers or white-collar workers at large corporations was likely related to the fact that many danchi required a certain level of income as a condition for residency. Until around the 1980s, danchi were places that inspired hope, bustling with middle-class families raising children with relatively stable lives.

However, now that more than 60 years have passed, the image of danchi has changed significantly from those days. Since the late 1990s, when the number of Japanese households constituting the working-age population began to decline in Japanese society as a whole, danchi—once the dream of young families—have less frequently attracted the attention of the younger generation due to aging buildings and poor access to transportation. In buildings without elevators, vacant rooms became noticeable on the upper floors, and the aging and isolation of residents became serious issues surrounding danchi (Kaneko 2017). Because people of the same generation moved in all at once during the same period, the age group of residents rose over the years, and a vacuum began to appear in the younger demographic. This vacuum expanded year by year, and it was many foreign workers from South America and Asia who moved into the danchi to fill that hole.

In the 1990s, the number of foreign residents for work or study increased due to the revision of the Immigration Control Act (1989) and the introduction of the Technical Intern Training Program (1993). Since danchi are often managed and operated by public organizations such as UR or housing supply corporations, residents were not refused simply for being foreign. Furthermore, because there was no need to pay key money or renewal fees, they were ideal as the first place to live upon arriving in Japan for foreign workers who were not necessarily economically wealthy. There were also many cases where companies rented parts of danchi as dormitories for foreign workers. Danchi with concentrated foreign populations began to appear throughout Japan, such as the Homi Danchi in Toyota City, where many Brazilians live; the Ichio Danchi in Yokohama City, where many people with roots in Asia, including Vietnam, live; and the Shibazono Danchi in Kawaguchi City, where newcomer Chinese residents gather. Since the newly moving foreign households often belonged to the younger generation with children, nearby schools began to accept foreign children and children with foreign roots.

It is often said that danchi are places that embody social change, and the various conflicts and frictions arising from the encounters between residents with cultures different from those the danchi held for a long time are exactly the changes that Japanese society is currently facing. Violations of trash disposal rules, abandonment of oversized waste, noise, barbecues on balconies, and so on—in danchi where foreigners have come to live together, troubles between residents have been constant and have sometimes been featured in the media. In danchi with concentrated Brazilian populations, there were instances where the management office banned the use of meeting rooms, fed up with complaints about the large parties frequently held there.

However, when looking closely into these troubles related to the multiculturalization of danchi, it turns out that in reality, it was a foreign woman who was cleaning the stairs every morning, or it was a Japanese resident who was dumping unsorted trash. It cannot be denied that there is an aspect where long-neglected local problems were linked to anxieties regarding the rapid increase in foreigners and labeled as friction caused by multiculturalization. On the other hand, small troubles related to differences in Japanese language and culture were seen daily, sometimes leading to police involvement. It was also a fact that among the elderly residents who had moved into what were once considered dream homes and spent most of their lives in a highly homogeneous place, there were more than a few who did not have good feelings about the influx of foreigners. In schools within aging danchi, the proportion of foreign children became high, and some school sites faced the reality where about half of the enrolled children had a mother tongue other than Japanese. Teachers at such schools, caught between respecting the mother tongues and cultures of children with foreign roots and their responsibility for education that guarantees a foundation for life in Japan, repeatedly engaged in trial and error for multicultural education in addition to their regular teaching duties. It can be said that the experience of danchi where foreigners have come to live together has confronted Japanese society with the fact that "multicultural coexistence" is not as easy as the words suggest, but exists within the raw realities of daily life that cannot be settled with platitudes.

With the times, the lives of foreigners living in danchi are also changing. Information that was once obtained from satellite TV broadcasts via installed antennas is now easily accessible with a single smartphone. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was said that many people were well-informed about the infection situation in their home countries but completely unaware of the situation in Japan. Information exchange and communication, which used to take place within local compatriot communities, now conclude within smartphones. As the children of foreign residents who moved in around the 90s reach an age where they leave their parents and become independent, the aging and isolation of the parent and grandparent generations are becoming problems among foreign residents of danchi as well. Meanwhile, among the younger generation of foreign residents newly moving into danchi, multilingual and multicultural friction between residents still occurs. Diversification within the foreign resident population of danchi is also progressing further.

In this situation within danchi, we sometimes see new forms of solidarity emerging. There are cases where young Japanese-born Brazilians are supporting the economically vulnerable without distinction between Japanese and foreigners; cases where newcomer Indian residents have started activities to teach English to Japanese residents and children; cases where elderly former teachers are helping Japanese-born foreign children with their homework; and cases where a multicultural cafe was opened by danchi housewives where residents with various challenges can bring their needs and relax. Foreign residents who have already lived in Japan for a long time are not necessarily viewed as vulnerable; sometimes they are the ones helping Japanese residents. Children who grew up in danchi alongside different cultures may grow up to reach out to others newly welcomed into the danchi and find value in doing so. Movements where diverse people try to interact through trial and error are beginning to be seen in danchi here and there.

The groups moving into danchi have been characterized by their respective eras and viewed as homogeneous groups. The examples of diverse solidarity seen in danchi across the country may be a manifestation of people beginning to look at the obvious fact that there is actually diversity even within people who were considered homogeneous, and that everyone has different problems and needs.

Danchi are mirrors that reflect social and era-based changes. These small solidarities and initiatives starting within danchi are each just small examples seen within a complex. However, it is precisely in carefully nurturing and examining these examples that the future of danchi—and the path to multicultural coexistence that Japanese society must truly face from now on—lies.

Jun Kaneko (2017) "Social History of New Towns" Seikyusha

Hiroki Okazaki (2020) "Foreigner-Concentrated Danchi: 'Gentle Coexistence' between Elderly Japanese and Young Foreigners" Fuso-sha Shinsho

Keiko Okamura (2020) "A Gaze Toward Danchi: Toward the Construction of Local Networks" Shinsensha

Koichi Yasuda (2019) "Danchi and Immigrants: The Struggle in the 'Space' at the Forefront of Issues" Kadokawa Shoten

Takashi Oshima (2019) "I Live in Shibazono Danchi: What Happens When Half the Residents Become Foreigners" Akashi Shoten