This study compared Japanese and American homeowners' attitudes about keeping housing lifespan. The results suggest that the lifespan of Japanese homes could be lengthened by a change inoutlook of their owners. Yearly depreciation is taken for granted in Japan. Thus, a typical urban house is rebuilt after only 20-30 years, which is about one-fourth the lifetime of a house in the United States or in rural Japan. Since existing houses in the U.S. are still highly valued, the owner expects a good return on his investment. The Japanese, on the other hand, would not expect a good price on his home, and thus plans to live there permanently or to rebuild rather than try to sell it.

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Japan's metropolitan cities have lots of densely-populated areas which are vulnerable to natural and human disasters. With the approaching earthquakes many people argued that it is imperative to make the areal redevelopment of these areas, but no big progress has made so far. This article proposes a new program, the Right Rearrangement Program (RRP), to completely redevelop the targeted areas by the whole rearrangement of infrastructure and plots after a certain period of time. The RRP also integrates small plots to produce bigger ones for more efficient land use. The RRP has more advantage than the ordinary areal development projects in that it enables the whole rearrangement of the areas and that it gives longer time to residents to prepare for change.

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