More than 8.5 million abandoned homes in rural Japan are creating a "ghost town" problem. There are more than 8.5 million akiya , or abandoned homes, in rural Japan, according to the country's 2018 Housing and Land Survey, its most recent on record. The institute predicts akiya could exceed 30% of homes in Japan by 2033. As Richard Koo, the chief economist at NRI, told them at the time, the Japanese countryside has been hollowing out since the mid-'90s. Why aren't more Japanese people buying abandoned countryside homes?

---

Persons: —, who've, Richard Koo, There's, Chris McMorran, Koo, Douglas Southerland, McMorran, Natasha Durie, Durie, Eric McAskill, McAskill, Jaya Thursfield, Chihiro, Kurosawa, Joey Stockermans, akiya Organizations: Service, Survey, Nomura Research Institute, Business Insider's, NRI, National University of Singapore, of Anthropology, Ethnography, Oxford University, Canadian Real Estate Association Locations: Japan, Business Insider's Singapore, Gifu, Vancouver, Canada, Nagano Prefecture, England, Ibaraki Prefecture, London, North America, Kyushu, akiya