The major challenge in the current Japanese housing market is the emergence of the ageing
population and the widening gap of the “emerging adulthood transition” (transitional years between
leaving the parental home and establishing one's own family) amongst the younger generation.
Though such challenges in the shifting demography have persisted in Japanese society for the past
50 years or more, the urgency of solving these problems has been propelled after the strike of the
global pandemic. Within such, one housing phenomenon which arose alongside various other
models was the share housing trend in Tokyo.

According to the institutional data of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport
(MLIT), the majority of shared house residents were single (90.4% of inhabitants) and around 20 to
25 years old (42.5% of inhabitants) with no children (92.9% of inhabitants) attached to them1.
While many imagine financial reasons or social preferences could be the main reason for people
choosing shared housing over other single-family apartments, many of the shared houses existing in
Tokyo now could imply that this is not always the case. Some see shared housing as the primary
solution to isolation in urban environments while others suggest that shared housing is the perfect
adaptation for the aging society, especially in Japan. The community aspect it provides could
become beneficial in solving the crisis of “kodokushi” also known as the “lonely deaths” of the
elderly population.

Realising that shared housing could be the future of the urban typology, this paper addresses
the following research question: how do demographic trends and socio-political environments
explain the mindset of collective-living lifestyles in Tokyo? It aims to connect the social and political
phenomena that have been saturated by demographic trends and try to look into the shaping of real
estate tenure patterns of the Tokyo metropolitan.