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Japanese cyber homes

May 24 2009
Cyber drifters bed down in the cheapest accommodation in Tokyo Japan's growing number of jobless are finding new ways of coping with the costs of living, by making their permanent home in small booths - measuring no more than a metre wide - in cyber cafes around the city. The people who populate these booths are Japan's cyber drifters - men and women who have little work and just enough money to afford the cubicles that constitute their home. Most have ended up in Tokyo after travelling throughout the country in search of work. They pay $500 (£330) a month for the small, box-like compartments, which have no ventilation or natural light but represent the cheapest accommodation available in Japan's over-populated capital. Cyber drifters are not a new phenomenon - people have been sleeping in these cafes like this for nearly 12 years. In fact, it is so common that Western travellers choose it as an alternative to paying for hostels when visiting the country. But with the credit crunch coming on the heels of Japan's decadelong recession, it is becoming an increasingly practical alternative for those who have lost their jobs. As previously reported in The Pavement (Issue 18), Japan has struggled with tens of thousands of rough sleepers as a result of the country's economic meltdown in the 1990s. The global credit crunch has done nothing to improve the situation. Estimates vary, but anecdotal figures suggest that although the number of people without permanent accommodation had declined significantly (down from 25,000 five years ago to 16,000 last year), it is returning to record levels. This is also causing conflict between "new homeless", whom one report described as "younger, angrier and unadjusted to the conventions of life on the streets" and the longer term homeless communities.
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December 2024 – January 2025 : Solidarity

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