The other city: alternative infrastructures of care for the underclass in Japan

Paying attention to the history of urban governance in postwar Japan, this article discusses how decades of governmental neglect and social exclusion gave rise to alternative practices and technologies of care in marginalized enclaves. In Kotobuki, a former day laborers’ district (yoseba) in Yokohama, the single-room occupancies known as doya have become care facilities for the impoverished elderly and people with disabilities, who are being embraced into a nexus of care sustained by local supporters. Two different groups appear central to this process: local resident (zainichi) Koreans, and Japanese leftists. The case of Kotobuki exemplifies how the resilient search by these two groups for an alternative future has transformed an underclass enclave into a uniquely protective dwelling place for the marginalized.