{"id":4797,"date":"2026-02-18T23:06:32","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/why-are-there-millions-of-empty-houses-in-japan-the-global-story-podcast-bbc-world-service\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:06:32","slug":"why-are-there-millions-of-empty-houses-in-japan-the-global-story-podcast-bbc-world-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/why-are-there-millions-of-empty-houses-in-japan-the-global-story-podcast-bbc-world-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are there millions of empty houses in Japan? &#8211; The Global Story podcast, BBC World Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe  width=\"580\" height=\"385\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ojNm2TxqfN4?autoplay=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<br \/>In Japan, the number of abandoned homes &#8211; known as Akiyas &#8211; is at an all-time high, with 9,000,000 million properties sitting empty on city streets and turning rural communities into ghost towns.<\/p>\n<p>Click here to subscribe to our channel \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/bbc.in\/3VyyriM<\/p>\n<p>Lucy Hockings is joined by BBC Tokyo correspondent Shaimaa Khalil to ask why these abandoned homes are such a problem? What they say about Japan&#8217;s existential population crisis? And whether there are any solutions?<\/p>\n<p>00:00 Introduction<br \/>\n01:00 Spotting the abandoned homes<br \/>\n02:20 Dolls replace people in &#8216;dying&#8217; village<br \/>\n02:55 Abandoned homes in cities<br \/>\n03:23 Why are there 9,000,000 empty homes in Japan?<br \/>\n04:06 Cultural and economic factors<br \/>\n05:22 &#8216;Homes die when the people die&#8217;<br \/>\n06:29 Impact on rural communities<br \/>\n07:00 Why not just knock the homes down?<br \/>\n07:47 Empty houses creating earthquake hazards<br \/>\n09:00 Foreigners buying and renovating these homes<br \/>\n10:53 Can tourism solve the empty home crisis?<br \/>\n12:42 Why foreigners are buying Akiyas<br \/>\n14:15 Japanese opinion on foreigners buying up empty houses<br \/>\n15:00 Does the Government have a plan for Akiyas<br \/>\n16:44 Japan&#8217;s aging population problem<br \/>\n17:35 &#8216;Akiyas tell the story of Japan&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Watch more episodes of The Global Story here \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLz_B0PFGIn4dvK8UQS79GwGLDl94Z3gkt<\/p>\n<p>You can listen to more episodes of The Global Story here. Making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, Monday to Friday, from the BBC \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd  https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/w13xtvsd\/episodes\/downloads<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br \/>\nThis is the official BBC World Service YouTube channel.<br \/>\nIf you like what we do, you can also find us here:<br \/>\nInstagram \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nTwitter \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/twitter.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nFacebook \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/facebook.com\/bbcworldservice<br \/>\nBBC World Service website \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/worldserviceradio<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching and subscribing!<br \/>\n#BBCWorldService #WorldService #Japan #Akiyas #Housing<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ojNm2TxqfN4\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Japan, the number of abandoned homes &#8211; known as Akiyas &#8211; is at an all-time high, with 9,000,000 million properties sitting empty on city streets and turning rural communities into ghost towns. Click here to subscribe to our channel \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffd https:\/\/bbc.in\/3VyyriM Lucy Hockings is joined by BBC Tokyo correspondent Shaimaa Khalil to ask why [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4155150479,"featured_media":4798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9666,9667,9675,9674,15,369,9678,9677,1361,1368,772,9670,1367,9671,9668,9672,9665,9664,1366,695,9676,9662,9663,328,1362,1363,9673,9680,9679,9669,1365,1364],"class_list":["post-4797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","tag-abandoned-architecture","tag-abandoned-homes","tag-akiyas","tag-akiyas-in-japan","tag-bbc","tag-bbc-documentary","tag-bbc-news-the-global-story","tag-bbc-the-global-story-podcast","tag-bbc-world-service","tag-docs","tag-documentaries","tag-earthquakes","tag-explainers","tag-foreigner-in-japan","tag-ghost-town","tag-home-buying","tag-home-impovement","tag-home-renovation","tag-investigations","tag-japan","tag-japan-akiyas","tag-japan-houses","tag-living-in-japan","tag-podcast","tag-podcasts","tag-radio","tag-real-estate","tag-the-global-story-bbc","tag-the-global-story-podcast","tag-tokyo","tag-world-service","tag-world-service-radio","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4155150479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/reel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}