Since the economic bubble’s collapse, Japan’s former yoseba (day labor ghettos) have transformed into concentrations of homelessness, welfare-subsidized housing, and supportive social services. However, many of the former pay-by-the-day hotels (doya) now cater to foreign and domestic budget travelers and the neighborhoods are seeing large scale redevelopment. How are residents, especially the poor, experiencing this advancing gentrification? Do these neighborhoods retain their function as neighborhoods of refuge (kakikomi chi’iki), buffering residents from the most extreme forms of urban marginality? I will explore these questions by drawing on ethnographic research in Tokyo’s San’ya and Osaka’s Kamagasaki conducted over a 25-year period.

Matthew Marr is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociocultural Studies and Asian Studies at Florida International University. His research focuses on homelessness in the US and Japan, showing how urban inequality is shaped by social conditions operating at multiple levels, from the global to the individual.

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