Since the late 19th century, the yellow peril fear mongering fueled racist legislation throughout the West against Chinese and other Asian people. The notion that ethnic Chinese people in the United States - including U.S.-born and naturalized citizens - can never be true Americans because they are innately loyal to China has been baked into U.S. DeSantis lauded Florida’s land bill (which offered exemptions for some residential property) as a protection from the Chinese Communist Party, he invited the public to consider Chinese people (and by association, all Asians) to be Americans’ racial, geopolitical and ideological enemies. Proponents of these laws argue that our adversaries might spy on military bases, endanger our infrastructure or even threaten the nation’s food supply. The rationale behind today’s version of the alien land laws is familiar: People and companies of foreign adversaries with property in the United States pose a threat to national security. Some have been introduced at the federal level. To date, at least 15 states have enacted laws restricting foreign land ownership, including Florida, Virginia, Alabama and Montana about 20 other states have bills pending. In many states, restrictions also apply to those from Iran, Russia, North Korea and other countries of concern. Ron DeSantis boasted, “I banned China from buying land in the state of Florida.”įlorida is just one of several states that are passing laws prohibiting the sale of residential, business or agricultural property to Chinese nationals, Chinese-owned companies or the Chinese government near military facilities, airports and other critical infrastructure. presidential hopefuls made proposals ranging from building up America’s nuclear submarine force to forbidding Chinese nationals to buy land in the United States. Last month, during their third debate, G.O.P. Now new laws are targeting Chinese people from owning property again. The rationale for these restrictions was to prevent Asians, envisioned as an alien invasion, from taking over the United States. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Western states passed alien land laws, which prohibited Asian immigrants from buying or leasing agricultural property. It was a time when, throughout the United States, residential segregation was common, supported by mortgage lending practices and often written into real estate deeds with racial covenants that forbade the sale of a home to Black people, Jews and Asians. A real estate agent said it was because they were Chinese. For now, though, many Japanese urbanites seem to feel that if a $500 home sounds too good to be true, it probably is.In the late 1950s, my parents tried to buy land in northern New Jersey on which to build a home. With top-level buy-in from the government, there’s always the chance that some of the legal obstacles to increasing rural homeownership could fall by the wayside. Thus, the unwanted homes persist, stuck between renovation and demolition.ĭespite those hurdles, the idea of buying a home and/or starting a business for such a low price has proved too good to pass up for some. Furthermore, property rights make it almost impossible for people to knock down these akiya and start fresh without approval from their (technical) homeowners, despite the fact that they want little to do with the property. Beyond renovation costs, a 1981 update to Japan’s Building Standard Law also means these homes are considered fragile enough to require structural work to bring them up to code. While foreigners aren’t excluded from buying akiya, there are a number of hoops to jump through that make owning one expensive if not impossible. Douglas Sutherland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s senior economist for Japan, told Insider that there’s generally less interest in DIY home renovations in Japan than there is in the U.S., which could contribute to an environment where most akiya appear to be more trouble than they’re worth. Though you’d think teleworking Japanese professionals would jump at the chance to buy a fixer-upper for less than Tokyo’s median monthly rent, there are a few hurdles that have kept buyers from completely embracing the akiya.
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