ボロボロ東京

Not very many run down areas near here. Some on the outskirts of the city, though...

The town that I live in is fairly new and most of it's development has taken place within the last 5 or so years so everything is new. I do see more run down areas in the next towns over though.

Yep, they're mostly kept out of the spotlight much like how you say people have this image of London that runs through their minds.

Whenever I see "run down" areas, I don't really see an area filled with crime, low-lifes, etc. I just see a place with a long past and many memories, even if I wasn't there for them. I usually can recreate an idea of what the place looked like "new".

Great article Danny.

Yes, we own land here in the US, a lot of it too, though not THAT expensive.

yup theres alot of that around here

In Mexico we have a lot of places like those but the sad thing is that crime is a common problem so if you are in a place with broken windows, dirt on the streets and old houses, you better watch out and hide your wallet. It's sad but it's the truth.

only some here in the place where i am currently living

Cannot recall much delapidated places in Singapore. Maybe the occassional run-down houses as no one lives in them anymore.

Wow, 39 million Yen per sq metre?! Wtf. That's bout SGD 530,000 bucks! Gosh.

Hmm, since I left Spain I've only been back 3 times. All my friends and family live in London so don't have that many people to visit in other countries.

If I remember correctly, London was voted the dirtiest city in Europe ^^;;; The problem is that certain bouroughs in London don't know how to handle their budget(and their residents don't give a crap either).
On the bright side, London was voted to have the nightlife and parks, second best place to shop after Paris~ Wai~

In my particular area there isn't alot of run down houses. However, I can move 20 minutes south and I'll find nothing but the ghetto. Here owning land usually means you own a house though the two don't always go hand in hand. I currently own my own home. Since the economy here is kinda starting to suck new home pricing is starting to drop due to lack of sales. Four years ago houses would go for $600,000 US Dollars easily within a week of being built. Now comparable houses struggle to sell at $300,000 and many homes are being foreclosed on.

Wow, those pictures are eye-openners to me. I guess even the most populus city have a run-down area.

In Canada, most of the run down places would be within the big cities, or if the areas been around for a while.
I'd say a lot of Canada is suburbs, which were made recently, past 30 years or so, so if you're in the suburbs, it'll be nice, downtown, then you can find old run down places.

I usually see really old battered houses in the country side. Wow, old houses. Some of these are just creepy. Makes me think of the Grudge.
Still, wow, land must be worth a least a house these days in Japan...

Those pics you took are still good (I mean liveable) compare to some run down area in my city. Lots of village people try their luck in Jakarta and usually they live in a very poor area. Those people don't live in real houses, usually they built their "houses" from very thin plywood for walls and zinc roof. I really want to share some pics when I get my feet to those neighbourhood.

I live out in farm country so there is more run down buildings around here than nice ones. Most of the people who live in them are nice and some of my best friends live in them. Their houses make those ones look great. I've been fortunate though to not have to live in a run down home.

i just took a stroll around my office area, and it look something like the pictures above...should take photos next time.

Not in my area that I'm aware of... Houses are generally fine, but depending on where you go, you can find a lot of rubbish outside apartments and houses (generally apartments), mostly in areas where there are a lot of none-english speaking families living.
The area I don't like is around Newtown near Sydney... smells bad and people carry their pets around and into shops. I only visited once to watch Howl's Moving Castle at Dendy cinema with subtitles (every other Dendy had the english dub version). I don't go out to explore much so I wouldn't know of any other suburb matching your description more closely. Also, Australia's fairly young, that might factor.

Those pictures remind me of most of the residential areas I've seen in Taibei – just take all the grass and replace it with asphalt, and turn all the wooden buildings into concrete.

My first home is one of those really run down kind wooden walls, zinc roof, cement floors, but at the time no digital camera. When I was about 6-7 years old, we were forced move out by the government, so all that remains is my memories of the place ^^; it was eventually pulled down :( we used to have animals like dog/cat/chicken, and would have crazy adventures like discovering a snake under my dad's car while squatting by the drain to brush our teeth lol. May try to dig out some kid pix I have somewhere floating around :P

And hmmm Haven't gone back to Singapore in about say, a couple years, cos tickets are expensive =_=; this year we got a morgage started also, so to go back to asia, gotta save up for it ^^;

Brazil = favelas.
Well, that's not entirely true... but almost all big cities has them.
Most of them don't have right in the middle of the city, like Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo though.

About Tokyo... even the old buildings has some charm on them.
I saw some of them... I remember while I was in Akiba I saw this old run down building in the middle of 2 big moderns ones. Kinda funny... looked like it was being bullied.

Anyways, this Ryokan we stayed in Osaka was in a kinda run down 2 story building too. It had a very small ofuro... but it was kinda fun. Narrow steep stairs, my uncle didn't like much... :P

Los Angeles is same, one part is a glamorous city and next part is some run-down slum area.

I have cousins living back in Korea and I went to visit them last year. It was good to see all of my relatives again but honestly, trip to Korea wasn't as fun as trip to Japan(I know because I went to Japan 3 days after I came back from Korea) ^^;

well, housing/land prices are increasingly on the rise, and governments have started giving out subsidies, i dunno around other places, but some house got sold around where i live for 2.5mil aud, with a rundown house and an average size of land

I live in a run-down area -.-

As long as the capitalistic system exist, those kind of places is unavoidable.

Interesting to see Tokyo's not-so-shiny side. Keeps the reality in check. We obviously have run down areas over here, but not that many. Also, cities are trying to improve these parts by new construction etc.

Plenty of squatters living on government land illegally here, most of them are illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries. Not a very pretty sight, and as always the local government doesn't even move an inch to evict these illegal squatters.

Well there are areas in Vancouver, specifically the Downtown Eastside...Although there is also the social mix of Chinese Canadians and urban Aboriginals. However in another part there are also drug-addicts and homelessness. Let's use wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Eastside

There is actually quite a bit of rundown areas in Hawaii.
THE TOUR PICS SPEAK OF LIES!

Not many run down places in my city, if any. Mainly because 90% of the development here took place within the last 20 years.

Hmmm.... to answer the poll question there are not many places like that around here. I live in the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania and it is generally a nice place to live. If you want run down and old, head for the outskirts of Bethlehem, Allentown, Easton or Emmaus, etc. Cities such as Bath and Nazareth are very nice- I have been to them and have not seen anything run down. They are relatively safe cities and are kept well. Wilson... HAH. Easton and Wilson- if you want old, run down and decrepit (moderate crime) then these two cities are where you want to go.

O_o At least the owners of those houses own the land. Here, everywhere you go you'll see squatters. Squatters beside office buildings, schools, rivers, ocean, airport, etc. You'll get use to it though especially the smell of garbage. I don't blame them though why they became squatters but it makes my blood boil whenever the government wishes them to leave but the squatters refuse since they claim that since they've been living there for a long time they should have the land.

lol... we got a whole city of it

"Many run down areas in your region?" - the region is practically a run down area. and we have our gov't to thank for that. Here the Philippines you'll see a posh multistory condominium standing right beside an entire block of shanties.

There are a few rundown areas in Monterey, but most of it is kept modern and in good repair. The main reason is because of all the celebrity traffic that comes through here for living and golfing.

As for revisiting birthplaces, I try to make it back to Japan every couple of years. It's hard with work and all, but I at least make plans for trips (usually to Kyoto). I still have family in Aomori-ken and Hokkaido that I haven't seen in over a decade, too. Should plan a trip north, this time...^_^

i used to live in a neighborhood that at the time wasn't run down but it has fallen on hard times.its gone down a bit but its still pretty good compared to other parts of my fair city.I own land in another part of the state in a couple of towns. one of them has an old ass house that was built by my great great grandfather. it looks run down but its still a pride of joy.taxes suck ass though.

Haven't seen really run down places in Finland really... there might be a couple of old buildings here and there waiting for something to be done but there isnt really big areas that would be run down.

But I visited Venice couple of weeks ago and it was a surprise how it wasn't all shiny filled with great buildings. Of course it wasn't anything like in the pictures here but it was really easy to see no one is looking after the buildings, except for the major sights. And the place is filled with graffito.

Currently Im staying in Austria and buildings here are in pretty good shape all over. Many buildings are old but still well kept.

you call that run down? Seriously? It looks cleaner than most of the normal areas around here. That's Japan for you. Incredible. I mean yeah, there is stuff, junk or not, piled up against side of creaky looking buildings..but it's piled up neatly! I should enlighten ya'll with some pics =p

Oh yeah... Corrugated roofing as a building material!
There used to be a house built like that (or at least reparied like that) on the way to my old school. The surrounding businesses and residents were constantly at the owner to fix it up or knock it down. The bloke however we adamant that he owned the land and would therefore do what he liked on it. Four years on and it's still there.

So yeah, we've got a run-down area or two, mostly around the outer suburbs. Housing prices close to the city are far too expensive to let "run down."

As for the folks, old bloke's from England (Blackpool) and we've been back a few times. Mum's parents were Chinese, but we've yet to visit back there.

It's these kind of areas which I like to imagine are filled with low-level neutral creeps every night that one could seek out, hunt down and gain experience lol. I can imagine running through a gauntlet of run-down areas armed with a pump shotgun, a combat knife and a handheld floodlight... I know. I play too much games.

It's these kind of areas which I like to imagine are filled with low-level neutral creeps every night that one could seek out, hunt down and gain experience lol. I can imagine running through a gauntlet of run-down areas armed with a pump shotgun, a combat knife and a handheld floodlight... I know. I play too much games.

for some reason when I see places like these I can't help but think of how the area must have looked when it was first erected and how it must have been a nice place. The bustle and beauty that has been battered by time...

Haha it's funny I like thinking about how time affects thing going into the future, yet history and going back in time is not a strong suit of mine lol

Since I live in HDB flats, my family doesn't own the land... Just the house...

LOL when you imagine about another country you'll only know about the good stuff...

I'd rather not post pictures of decapitated places...it seems too depressing. But for a more "decent" old/run-down places in Old Manila some houses there are as old as early post-war or simply because the grime of the very crowded places. Frightening when fire starts and with the additional dark alleys. The place would be odd looking especially if you can see how big and extravagant mansions (old and new) are.

Had been living in HDB flats. There are still some old-looking shop houses here though.

If u could only see my homeland in the Philippines in Bulacan there's alot of awfull places out there..Coz of global warming,poverty,& the SM (Shoe Mart kinda like Wal-Mart in the US) most cool places i know became bad ..i feel pity on those place

I heard in some places of the world, if you squat long enough, the land become yours. So this may have led to the mushrooming of squatter towns with atrocious living conditions.

Anyway, you have to go to some out of the way places to find run-down houses here. Some of these are inhabited by elderly folk who, due to a history of untreated mental illnesses, hoard worthless and pointless things. Their houses could be filled with old newspaper, bags of rags people threw away, appliances that are hopelessly spoilt, etc. It's appalling and sad at the same time, especially when they die and their neighbours don't even realise it.

Hey, a Gomi pile! Free TVs!!

Those "run down" areas can hold some real gems. As Danny said, there isn't any crime problems in these areas. Its just that the buildings are old and not well maintained. When I was station at Camp Zama I would drive out to Yakota AFB every other weekend to go shopping, see friends, and get some Popeye's chicken. The area just outside Yakota was ok but if you walked a couple of blocks away from the base, the area became decidedly more run down (this was 1991-1993)

One time I was walking through this area when I discovered the only Cajun restaurant I have ever seen in Japan. This "hole in the wall" joint had AUTHENTIC Cajun food. Being that I'm Cajun, I immediately went in. I am SOOOOOO happy I did. The owner/chef lived in New Orleans for several years and learned to cook there. His gumbo was fantastic! Also, because he had lived in Louisiana, he was great for conversation. We talked a lot about American Football since he was a New Orleans Saints fan like I was.

Here in the United States there's a looooooooooot of scary looking, run down places. o.o Too scary to take pictures of! >.<

It really doesn't look that bad.I mean there is no Graffity or garbage in the street.Maybe the pictures with the bikes and the garbage behind the house. But those just look like recycling opportunities to me. The other pictures show that with a little investment these houses wouldnt be so bad. New roof, new wood pannels and a paint job. Id have to see the inside. If the rent is cheap hell i'd live there.

Yea the U.S. is REALLY bad about slums. At least half of Kansas City is run down with some pretty scary people.

hah..Danny, i can picture u snooping around n behind the alleyways taking all these pix. lol

There are some run-down areas or suburbs here in Melbourne. Generally the houses are so decrepit that they have been left abandoned or that they are in the slum / ghetto areas.

Both land and cost of housing (dependent on which area / suburb of course) are at it's highest here in Melbourne (and to a lesser extent in Australia). Prices have been ridiculous and all analysts have been predicting a huge drop in the past 2 years but prices have yet to go down.

My parents and I are originally from HK. I used to travel back to see dad at least once a year when he went back to work there for about 5 years. Since he retired, I've only been back once and that was like 5 years or so ago.

Foster home, what?

I was born in Melbourne,Australia but I only lived their for a couple years before moving to California, USA. I've never visited Australia, although I have visited Vietnam once (where my parents are from).

Some roads in our town are really bad, like people still live there and you wonder why the house isn't gone yet. It's only in certain spots though, like a few houses in town and down the back roads and darker places.
We have this on really old house that stands on a hill. It gets restored every once in a blue moon, so it's still there. They moved it to our town a little while back when my Dad was still a kid. It dates back to the Civil War; was part of the South.
It apparently used to be a really important house, and everyone calls it Thorntree House because of the sign that hangs on it: 'Thorntree Meeting House'. Not really sure what sort of meetings it was used for, but everyone says it's haunted.
It ought to be, the way it looks, big scary old looming thing. I swear I saw something in the windows once.

My hometown is very small, so we only have one run down house, which is being torn down this very second. However there are a few vaccant buildings in the "downtown" area. But there is hope for them since it seems that people really enjoy turning them into homes or workshops. One man bought an old church and renovated it. Kinda strange looking mix after that...

Infrastructure is really, really bad here... Almost all our roads are pot-holed and patched up badly, and our pavements have grass (and vague weeds) sprouting here and there.

Wrt run-down places, Mumbai (Not where I live ^^) has the largest slum in Asia, namely Dharavi. Need I say more? I see people with a much lower standard of living everyday and can only bow my head in shame, for not being able to do anything to change their lives permanently, and for being comfortable when they are not.

My home town was really interesting. The street I lived on was a nice, middle class street. A good portion of the teachers at the jr high and HS I attended lived there (including my mother). But the next street over was really ghetto. If you went another 2 streets over from that, it was a bunch of rich people houses. It was an interesting neighborhood.
A lot of the Dallas (TX) area is like that too. You drive by these really nice, gated communities, and then a block later it's dirty slums.

By the way, the Peter O'Toole movie, Venus, was shot in Whitstable, Kent and Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath, Hampstead (where they shot some of Notting Hill too). I don't know what any of that means, but in the featurette on the DVD they talked about shooting in an area of London that isn't often filmed, etc.

My hometown is a suburb without rundown areas. It's actually the whitest city in the US with a population of over 100,000.

But for rundown, I live next to Detroit...which is an entire city of decrepit.

There are a LOT of rundown areas in our country and as mentioned in a previous comment, these can often times be seen right next to progressive ones. I think it's this diversity (irony?) though that makes living in my country interesting. Also, it's not like they're all extremely unhappy. I've met people from those areas who seem way happier than the suburb/village folks I know.

Unfortunately all big cities have this kind of thing, thankfully since I live in a small town there's nothing like this. The price of the land is rising because more and more people want to build more houses, but since the taxes and everything is increasing and since the ECB (European Central Bank) is most likely going to increase the taxes again next month everyone is scared because that means more money to pay to the banks :S

We've got some rundown areas here, but not that many. There is one about 1km away which looks quite decrepit but it's not like you have to avoid that place, the chance of getting attacked in the city is a lot higher

英語が上手くないので全文日本語で失礼。

ダニー、君は東京にもこういう地区があると紹介したいのはわかるがそれなら文章だけにしてくれ。
君がジャーナリストなら若干は譲歩するがここはそういう場所ではないだろう？
別に私は自国の影の部分を隠したいわけじゃない。だが、この紹介の仕方は非常に多くの誤解を他の
日本人に与えかねない表現だ。何らかの訂正または是正を求む。
今回の記事は君のブログを楽しみにしている者として非常に残念だ。

I live in a small village near a small town and there aren't many run down houses here. But there are some abandoned buildings in other villages further from the town. These are claimed by the nature one might say:P Most of these buildings were built in the Soviet age and are not needed anymore.

My area is just a dump...
If anyone's interested in "Urban Exploring" in Japan, here's a few links (as long as Danny doesn't mind me posting them)
http://www.gunkanjima-odyssey.com/
http://haikyouturn.namaste.jp/haikyoindex.html
It's quite staggering that these places remain intact for so long, when in the UK it would be burned out/full of pikeys within days.

interesting article. Ther are run-down houses here but not as many, since most are torn down in the blink of an eyelid and make way for towers. Cost of land is increasing every year as more and more demand increases. The price of land in my place doubled this year compared to that of last :S fortunately i or my family dont own land anywhere.

that places are the sort of places that i love in tokyo, can u tell us where are? wich zone?

There are run down houses where I stay too, but frankly, (I may be being a little bit of a heartless dick here) would like to see SOME of them torn down, but only the ones in the city district.

In Budapest the tourist spots are impeccably clean but there are some rundown places in the outskirts or where more immigrants live. My place is somewhere in the middle, not much crime but lots of dog poo.
I like those pics of 'run down' houses (except for the trash), I like the way they are tacked together.
39M yen/sqm? Wow for that money you can get a big house here. Are there any pictores of Ginza houses?

Ok, now that you've shown us the run-down places, how about the actual ghettos of Japan. I'm interested in the crime rate, we hear about the random psycho and suicides all the time, but just how bad is the crime in the bad sides of town, and what parts of Japan are well-known for crime? Not everyone can afford to live in decent neighborhoods (*cough* me). For example, I live in a trailer court -.- on the east side of Pueblo, Colorado, and let me tell you... it's not the most run-down looking but it's run-down in terms of the crime rate is terrible. I've only lived here a year and I'm renting-to-own the trailer *gag* while the land itself is the part that costs the most. Living here allows for more spending and saving up money. Anyways, there's way too much gang activity and random acts of violence here. Just a few weeks ago someone beat their 18 month old baby to death because it was crying... We have shootings here every week or so, burglary is super-high. Gangs are killing this town. I just happen to live in the worst side of town for that (yay?) Everywhere I walk is broken glass, I learned fast that walking barefoot in my own yard is a bad idea. Drunkards throwing beer cans and broken bottles in our yard all the time. I plan to sell this piece of crap once we own it, and try and find somewhere safer to live. Right now I don't go out past 8 pm, for good reason. I know this is all kind of off-topic but seeing run-down buildings made me think of this crappy area XD Abandoned trailers with broken windows and stray dogs and cats all over, glass covered roads and yards full of weeds and dirt, ahh the good life XD

The city has its share of hard neighborhoods. I wouldn't call them ghetto, but they have their share of crime...
Both of my parents were burn in russia. I swear, some of those photos remind me of places from silent hill games^^"

I live in a high end area... lol

the housing is settling a bit here...there has been a huge increase in house prices in the recent years, even old homes that look run down are expensive.
as for run down homes it seems to depend on the city, there are cities that have tons of nice homes and then just drive down a couple of streets and the whole street are older homes. the city i live in the older homes seem more sectioned off but that could be because most people in the city take care of their homes and they always look nice. in the end it seems like older homes are sectioned off from the newer homes but there are the odd ones that are old in a developing area, probably because they don't want to sell.

i have never seen run down areas where i have and now presently live. Also seeing as people are pointing out strange things and such, Danny sometimes pages wont go back :( i press the backbutton and it doesnt take me back same with the backspace button. Also, you site has to be the only one that when your logged in and refresh/go to a new page, it makes it seem as if your not logged in for a few seconds. there not major and dont effect me and i dont really mind but if everyone else gets these and its annoying you could look into it :).
bye bye for now.

With land values rising in Tokyo, I wouldn't mind making some investments. Come to think of it, this is the first time my parents and I haven't owned any land for investment.

I seen many of these type of areas around in Osaka. Even thought these homes are older and in need of attention on the outside, many are well taken care of inside. Then again it is the value of the land that is important in Japan. Structures are not as important as they are they are here in the states. I have see younger Japanese couples living in areas like some of your pictures. Areas where one sees newer development mixed with older. I find myself think they plan to rebuild in time.

Compared to many areas here around the city of Detroit, this is upscale. It is very common to see large areas of Detroit where the homes are completely dilapidated and abandoned.

When real estate prices went nuts here, they began tearing down a lot of old buildings to put up new condos. So they're trying to revamp a lot of the dumpy areas and it looks like they're forcing the bums and druggies into more concentrated areas.

Funny how older structures photograph so well. The seem to have a soul, whereas new buildings seem lifeless or sterile.

I must admit here in my country, those urban areas are generally as common as you can see here anywhere. Our government is an epic failure (a damn truth) and that's the reason why we never seem to progress. It's all about political greed , corruption and a non-stop crime rate like robbery for every day life just to survive this urban sickness that we are having difficulties to face off.

lol.....that part of Tokyo should be called Watts.

Most of the Latino & African-American residential areas in Los Angeles County are runned down. Especially out here in the Watts area where i live. Some of it is being renovated while most homes remain the same. There's not much you can do in terms of renovation around the poor communitites in L.A. county.

This is a proof that Japan is not as perfect as too many ppl want to sell us hehe. Those houses are quite ugly and the worse, small.

All the photos i have seen of Japan shows "compressed" houses and streets (and apartments like bee panels). In my country we have wider streets and nicer houses. The poor builds better houses here, imho.

Hey, if the apartment's cheap enough, I don't care if the previous tenant died there, I'll take it!

Koooool pics, Danny!!! I LOVE urban decay photos! I have seen some places like that when visiting Tokyo and Kyoto.

There are definitely some very run-down parts of Chicago-- some of them are actually very scary and dangerous, especially on the south side where I grew up. Living on North Side, as I do now, it's not very common. During the time that I spent living in North London, I shot a whole photo series I call "Rotting London." I still haven't put the photo album together, though. These photos inspire me to do it, though!

reminds me of my home town in the philippines.

In the city that I live in there's a sprinkle of good and bad houses. Once you drive northbound for a couple of blocks they become more abundant ( spelling Nazi, is that correct ;}). All of the nicer houses are hidden behind Walmart and the Mall. The rest are more southern bound.

Even the best cities have that kind of image.

Like poverty exist everywhere

I live in Vancouver, there are some run down places, but not to any serious extent. At most, the houses just look torn and battered, and certainly not crime ridden.

In response to one of the questions in your blog, I live in Hong Kong but have been living in Canada for 13 years. Certainly hope to go back to Hong Kong or Japan for settlement in a few years time..^^

Due to the Apartheid system and forced removals, many people were placed in areas which were unsuitable for healthy, comfortable living. So, there are quite a few areas in my country which has a similar situation. The property value was shocking a month back but, it has dropped by 40% since then, thankfully.

I live in a rich area of the UK so not much run down ness- not compared to Cape Town and the shanty towns you get just about everywhere. I didn't epxect Japan to be perfect, so the pictures you took come as no surprise. Atleast those areas are still safe-ish, even if people are living in poverty. In answer to your question, I was Born in South Africa and we go back to Cape Town once every 3 or 4 years. All my relatives live there so it's important we get to see them.

Not many of such areas here. I mean, my country barely has enough space as it is to house the population on modern housing, like hell they'd let some old buildings stand in their way. To the Singapore government, everyday is WRRRYYYYYYY time.

I have never seen anything like slums or that sort of thing. Singapore is entirely(almost) city. I haven't seen much of the poor. Good living conditions are often taken for granted. OMG, and I thought Japan was too developed for that. Thanks for clearing the wrong idea.

I live on the west side of Chicago and petty much most of the west and south side is run down but the city have started to revitalize several neighborhoods but still not the best place to be in the middle in the night alone.

Around Camp Shelby, MS where I was for the past three weeks there were quite a few hovels. In State College, there are not so many besides the small frat houses.

hehehe its like a run down Nobita land

こんにちは、日本語で失礼します。私は日本に住んでる日本人ですが、こういう町並みを外国の方に紹介していただいてとても嬉しいです！！やっぱり東京の大都会の町並みは特別で一般的な日本の風景ではないですよね。私の家の周りにもこんな家ありますよ。外国の方はどう感じるか分かりませんが、ボロボロだけど日本人にはどこか懐かしくホッとする風景です。私の実家も数年前までこんなでしたよ。もう立て替えてしまって「輸入住宅」というやつになってしまいましたが。周りのボロ屋もどんどん立て替えられてます。そのうちこういうボロ屋は見られなくなってしまうんでしょうねー。ちょっと寂しいです。

Lots of these neighborhoods in urban Japan.

Too hard for developers to work with, even $ incentives during the bubble didn't see so many of these neighborhoods updated (though good business for the yaks then and kept them busy amalgamating the smaller plots).

Are all those bikes on the last photo are... dumped?
They're all don't seem broken or something...

Seen a couple of run down areas in my city (Montreal). And some of them are either being rebuilt or torn down for future housing/commerce development.

There are a few run down places here and a lot of homeless. Those bikes and trash pile would of been completely gone if it was here. Those run down places don't look that close to the run down places here though. Ones here look highly unsafe, broken windows, gang signs, etc.

never thought i would see this part of Japan

I wouldnt mind living in these places. I say that because I want to live in Japan so bad no matter where I will sleep. As long as some big shot land buyers dont buy everything and kick me out the next day.