The paper "Leveraging Lessons from Japan" came about from a conversation with American and Japanese leaders engaging US-Japan bilateral social and economic policy learning in 2024. The present moment makes the paper particularly relevant in the United States. High-profile leaders at the federal, state, and local levels grapple with the escalating costs of caregiving and social insurance. As the United States navigates housing costs that persistently exceed income growth, the Japanese model offers valuable inspiration and intentionally or unintentionally aligns with recent proposals from Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as well as longstanding efforts throughout the ideological spectrum to ensure that both the demand and supply of housing result in decent housing that is affordable and available to working and middle class people.
In a moment when federal policy is simultaneously supercharging supply-side tax credits and cutting core social protection programs, while governors and mayors experiment with aggressive tenant protections and state-led production strategies, Japan offers a concrete proof point that the combination of streamlined supply policies, strong income supports, and robust renter protections is central to making housing affordable and homelessness low.
For Mayor Mamdani, who is trying to pair rent freezes and stronger tenant protections with ambitious production targets—publicly led construction of 200,000 permanently affordable units and new task forces to fast-track city-owned land—the paper underscores both the promise and the risks of that strategy. Japan’s experience shows that strong national tenant protections can and should be matched with reliable mechanisms to keep supply growing: simple, flexible zoning, rapid permitting, and public or quasi‑public developers that can deliver large-scale, high-quality housing in desirable locations. The paper provides evidence that Mamdani’s approach for avoiding any unintended consequences of renter protections by pairing them with production, and it elevates ideas—like using public land strategically, modernizing codes, and incentivizing small landlords—that align with his early executive actions but push the new NYC approach toward a more coherent long-term model.
For Governor Spanberger, whose Affordable Virginia agenda leans heavily on giving localities new tools, expanding the state housing trust fund, and preventing evictions, the paper validates a state‑centric, cross‑ideological approach that ties land‑use reform directly to both housing and social policy outcomes. Japan’s national zoning framework and integrated housing–transport–welfare governance illustrate how states can play a coordinating role—preempting exclusionary local practices, standardizing flexible zoning categories, backing quality modular and off‑site construction, and using state bond authority and revolving funds to support mixed‑income, denser development. The paper also highlights the importance of rapid, automatic income supports and eviction‑prevention programs in keeping families housed, reinforcing Spanberger’s focus on an expanded eviction reduction program and state-level tools like rights of first refusal and land trusts to preserve affordability.
At the federal level, President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” crystallizes the tension the paper warns about: expanding the Low‑Income Housing Tax Credit and related supply subsidies while simultaneously enacting deep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and other safety net programs that directly affect renters’ ability to pay for housing. The paper explicitly notes that the 2025 budget law’s LIHTC expansion has been estimated to finance up to roughly 1.22 million new affordable units over a decade, but that these gains are likely to be undermined by large, policy‑engineered reductions in income and health support for low‑ and moderate‑income households, which will worsen rent burdens and homelessness. Japan’s model shows that universal health coverage and generous, fast, and relatively simple public assistance—paired with supply‑friendly zoning and finance—is a core reason it maintains extremely low unsheltered homelessness despite an aging society and high urban density, directly contradicting the idea that supply‑only tax incentives can solve the crisis while the benefit programs are being cut back.
Taken together, the paper surfaces a unifying framework that cuts across Mamdani’s municipal tenant-first policies, Spanberger’s pragmatic state‑level toolkit, and Trump’s supply‑side federalism: only multi-faceted strategies will succeed at scale. In a period of record US rent burdens, rapid growth in family homelessness, and rising public demand for action on housing costs, the Japan case provides an empirically grounded, politically adaptable template for combining zoning and permitting reform, public and quasi‑public development, tax incentives for small landlords, and robust income supports into a coherent national strategy—even in a fragmented federal system where states and localities may lead the way.
Read "Leveraging Lessons from Japan: Improving US Housing Outcomes" here.
About the Author
Indivar "Indi" Dutta-Gupta is a Visiting Researcher, McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and the founder of Blue Lotus Strategies, where he advises foundations, advocacy organizations, and research institutions on social policy design, narrative, and strategy. His work focuses on improving economic security and opportunity, with a particular emphasis on income supports, health care, caregiving, and housing policy. Previously, he served as President and Executive Director of the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and as Co-Executive Director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality, and has held roles in Congress and across the policy research community. He is the author of numerous reports, testimonies, and commentaries on US poverty, inequality, and social protection.
