Abstract
It is generally said that in an urbanized society the rental housing is the predominant type of dwelling. However, the change in housing tenure after World War II shows that the continuous increase in the “owner-occupied housing with a garden” is notable in developed countries such as Japan. In this comparative study, we discuss the change of home-ownership and its social background in three countries — Japan, England, and America. In the first year of the study, changes over time in the population move to cities, in class structure, in housing flow and housing stock during a period of more than 100 years were examined with an emphasis on the period after World War II. The result assures us that the percentage of home-owners is steadily rising on the whole in all three countries, with some regional differences. The second year study was focused on distribution of housing tenure (ratio of owner occupied housing to rental housing) on the nationwide level, in metropolitan level, and in city level of the three countries. Comparison on the nationwide level shows some similarly between Japan and America; ratio of owner occupied housing changes along with the level of urbanization. But there is a notable difference. In America, the more concentrated the urban population becomes, the higher the ratio of rental housing rises. Meanwhile in Japan, the distribution is susceptible to social stratum rather than to urbanization. In England, on the other hand, distribution of owner occupied housing, public rental housing and private rental housing varies locally, influenced by the degree of flourishing or declining of the region. To compliment the study, we examined the case of Germany where the ratio of owner occupied housing is relatively low. Through analysis, we learned that the low ratio comes from the continual development of cities since the Medieval era.
