What will Japan do with all of its empty ‘ghost’ homes? www.bbc.com

Population decline is a major issue for many countries.
It’s of particular concern for Japan, which after experiencing a major boom throughout the 20th Century is now seeing steep population contraction.
This is already happening in Japan, where the country’s dramatically ageing population is fuelling a massive inventory of vacant homes.
Known as ‘akiya’, these are homes left abandoned without heirs or new tenants.
Akiya dot the landscape all over Japan, listed in ‘akiya banks’ from Tokyo prefecture to rural Okayama prefecture to mountainous Kumamoto prefecture in Kyushu, at the southern end of the Japanese archipelago.