[Feature: The Future of Danchi] Shinichi Aizawa: The Time of Children and Families That Flowed Through Danchi—The Future of "Cutting-Edge" Residential Areas in an "All-Middle-Class" Society

2023/05/08

In recent years, it has become common to talk about "disparity" in Japanese society using terms such as "educational disparity," "disparity society," and even "oya-gacha" (parental lottery). It is also frequent to see university applicants talk about solving disparities in Japanese society as their motivation during interviews. However, for generations aged 40 and older, these words likely feel somewhat "new."

From the 1970s to the early 1990s, what Japanese society seemed to have achieved was an equal society. The term used to describe this equal society was "So-Churyu" (All-Middle-Class). For example, in a 1975 questionnaire survey that triggered the use of the term "All-Middle-Class," more than 80% of respondents perceived their lifestyle as "middle-class." This became the basis for the expression "All-Middle-Class."

In this society where people considered themselves "equal" and "middle-class," the symbolic presence in housing was the "Danchi" (public housing complex). A research team led by Daisuke Watanabe reconstructed the 1965 "Survey on the Living Conditions of Danchi Residents" in Kanagawa Prefecture, which recorded the living conditions and daily schedules of people living in municipal and prefectural housing that began occupancy in the 1950s, as well as six Danchi that began occupancy in the 1960s. This article introduces the lifestyle and atmosphere of that time as read from the "Survey on the Living Conditions of Danchi Residents." Some of the content introduced here is also described in The Beginning of the All-Middle-Class: A Postwar History of Danchi and Lifestyle Time, edited by Daisuke Watanabe, Shinichi Aizawa, and Naoto Mori (Seikyusha).

For people at the time, moving into a Danchi was the start of a new life. They lived in brand-new concrete buildings, buying brand-new home appliances. Hope for this new life can be read in the survey forms. In the 1965 "National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure," the ownership rate of electric washing machines was 68.5% and electric/gas refrigerators was 51.4%, but in this survey, both exceeded 90%. The average year of acquisition was 1961 or 1962. It is inferred that many households purchased these items when they moved in.

Political scientist Takeshi Hara, who lived in the Takiyama Danchi in Higashikurume City, looks back on the Danchi as follows.

At that time, many of the children who commuted from Takiyama Danchi, including myself, had almost no longing for detached houses. Rather, we believed that Danchi were the new housing that symbolized the modern era, and that if an earthquake or fire occurred, wooden detached houses would collapse instantly. (Takeshi Hara, "Takiyama Commune 1974," p. 175, Kodansha Bunko, 2010)

The symbolic presence that colored the new life in new housing was the television. Analyzing the daily schedules of couples in this survey, in more than half of the households, one of the spouses watched television between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM on weekdays. Additionally, 90% of elementary and junior high school students responded that they watched television on weekday nights. Cross-referencing with the television listings in newspapers of the time, programs for children were concentrated starting from "Hyokkori Hyotanjima" at 5:45 PM until 8:00 PM on weekdays. After that, the parents likely watched television.

The lives of children at the time of the survey in early winter 1965 were, overall, urban yet idyllic. The urban aspect is seen in the tendency to spend more time on home study than on chores, which had been seen in urban areas since before the war. For example, while over 80% of children did home study in the afternoon or evening, only about 10% (slightly higher for girls) did chores. On the other hand, how children spent their time after school could still be called idyllic. Although the survey was conducted during a cold period, 26% of boys answered that they played outside, while only 6% answered that they took "lessons" (extracurricular activities) as a weekday activity, and only about 10% of elementary and junior high school students answered that they went to a Juku, with outdoor play being more common. Sleep duration exceeded 10 hours for lower elementary school students, was in the late 8-hour range for junior high school students, and in the 7-hour range for high school students. It was a time when the phrase "Yon-to Go-raku" (Pass with 4 hours of sleep, fail with 5) was already spreading, but such children were hardly seen. This combination of "study well, play well, sleep well" and "watching television" can be said to be the beginning of the typical lifestyle of children in the society called "All-Middle-Class."

The world of "entrance exams" that quickly entered the lives of children in Danchi, which were symbols of an urban lifestyle, could be said to be the world of junior high school entrance exams. In Ronald Dore's "City Life in Japan" (Iwanami Shoten), it is introduced that in residential areas where downtown and uptown Tokyo were mixed immediately after the end of the war, families enthusiastic about education were taking junior high school entrance exams. In the Danchi data mentioned above, although only about 10% of elementary and junior high school students answered that they went to a Juku, the highest percentage was among 11 and 12-year-olds, exceeding 20%.

In the autobiographical non-fiction "Takiyama Commune 1974," which describes escaping the suffocating atmosphere of a local Danchi elementary school that promoted collectivist education by taking junior high school entrance exams, it is stated that 189 out of 199 graduates went on to the local public junior high school. Takeshi Hara, who went on to Keio Futsubu School as one of the "very few," states that upon entering the Futsubu School, there were no classmates living in Danchi, and his view of housing changed as follows.

The sense of superiority over detached houses that I had held during elementary school crumbled easily upon entering Keio. I had to admit that Danchi were no longer at the cutting edge of the times, but rather the opposite. (Ibid., p. 315)

Here, it goes without saying that what Hara describes as "not at the cutting edge, but the opposite" is due to the change in his reference group after his academic advancement. Rather, it is more appropriate to see the beginning of the "All-Middle-Class" era as a time when people who brought the world of junior high school entrance exams from the urban uptown to the suburban Danchi passed through these complexes.

Danchi, which were cutting-edge collective housing in the 1950s and 60s, continued to be cutting-edge residences in new towns within the "All-Middle-Class" society until the 90s. As Jun Kaneko organizes in "A Social History of New Towns" (Seikyusha), from the late 1960s onward, they became part of the composition of New Towns. Danchi housing itself changed from 2DK to 3DK, 3LDK, or high-rise housing with elevators. This trend continued along with the creation of New Towns throughout the 1990s, before the second baby boomers left their parents' homes. As a component of New Towns, Danchi were "cutting-edge" during the 20th century.

This reversed significantly with the return to the city center that occurred in the 21st century, correlating with the declining birthrate and the increase in dual-income households. Suburban New Towns, where the second baby boomers grew up based on the model of households with full-time housewives, are often located in places difficult for dual-income households to commute to the city center. As a result, after the second baby boomers reached adulthood and formed households, they rarely passed through Danchi, especially in the Tokyo metropolitan area. At the 7th Elementary School near Takiyama Danchi, the setting of the aforementioned "Takiyama Commune 1974," the number of students reportedly dropped to less than one-third, despite school consolidations.

Journalist Koichi Yasuda, who continues to cover Danchi in recent years, visited the Danchi in Machida City where he was born and raised for the first time in 42 years in 2018. He states that in the Danchi of that time, the residents' lives were completely transparent. Sounds of daily life could be heard from open front doors and windows, and there existed dense human relationships where residents knew well about each other's children and families.

Even in the 1965 data, while various home appliances were entering homes, room air conditioners were something that had not yet spread. Nationally, only 2% of households owned one, and in the Danchi of that time, only 0.5% owned one. Temperature control during hot weather relied on the breeze coming through open windows and front doors.

The Danchi of the 1960s, a time of brand-new concrete with many children, must have been lively with the sounds of life from open doors and windows. At night, the sound of televisions could surely be heard from every house. What colored the Danchi, the symbol of the "cutting edge" of the "All-Middle-Class" society, were the lively voices of children.

In his book "Danchi and Immigrants" (Kadokawa Shinsho), the aforementioned Yasuda points out that current Danchi, where children have disappeared, have become spaces at the forefront of challenges such as aging populations and foreign residents. When people's perception shifted from the "All-Middle-Class society" that seemed visible until recently to a "disparity society," Danchi also changed from a symbol of the "All-Middle-Class society" to a symbol of the "disparity society."

Media scholar Neil Postman, in his book "The Disappearance of Childhood" (Shinju-sha), presents the argument that the childhood created since the modern era has become invisible due to changes in society such as media. The physical sharp decline of children in Japanese society seems to indicate that the state of society is changing in a way different from this argument. And it was the Danchi that conveyed that "cutting-edge" atmosphere.

The atmosphere of children's and families' lives that flowed through the Danchi of the 1960s created a certain degree of an equal society as a result of seeking a prosperous life. In today's world, referred to as a "disparity society," I feel that we are being asked what equality and justice should be undertaken by society, while looking at the past and future of people's lives.

The data from the "Survey on the Living Conditions of Danchi Residents" introduced above is already available at the University of Tokyo SSJ Data Archive. Those interested are encouraged to access it.