4k hdr japan walk | Walk in San'ya (山谷) Tokyo japan | Current status of the largest slum in Tokyo.

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San’ya (山谷, San’ya) is an area in the Taitō and Arakawa wards of Tokyo, located south of the Namidabashi intersection, around the Yoshino-dori. A neighborhood named “San’ya” existed until 1966, but the area was renamed and split between several neighborhoods.

It is a region with a distinct culture, an area of crowded, cheap rooming houses where day laborers live.[

San’ya dates to the Edo period. Lower caste workers, butchers, tanners, leatherworkers, and the like, were forced to live in this undesirable region by the predominantly Buddhist authorities. It has retained its association with both lower class workers and with craftsmen. Within the past few years gentrification has begun to encroach on the area.

In recent years, some of the rooming houses have converted to provide cheap accommodation for foreign backpackers.

Since the 2002 FIFA World Cup, foreign tourists have started using cheap lodging in Sanya (mainly in Senjuu). Foreign customers are increasing due to the fact that prices are inexpensive, there is decent public order (to the degree that drunken fights between friends resulting in injury, shop lifting, and about five murder cases per year), and from the nearest station, the Minami Senju Subway Station, via the Hibiya Line, you can go to Ueno, Akihabara, Ginza, Roppongi and other sightseeing spots. Moreover, because of the increasing interactions with foreigners, Sanya’s former image is being transformed and “a cheap hotel town for foreigners” image is being established.

On October 3, 2008, after the arson incident on the Minami adult video store in Osaka, the prefectural governor or Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro, made the following comment concerning lodging establishments in Sanya and the people displaced from the fire, “If you go to Sanya, there are plenty of places you can stay for 200 or 300 yen, but in fashion, while you stay over at a 1500 yen a night place, you say things like, “This is dreadful.”” In regards to this statement, the Chief of Taito-Ward protested, which led to Ishihara, in an interview on October 10, 2008 to correct his previous statement by saying “The numbers were a little off.” As of 2008, places where you can stay for 200 or 300 yen do not exist.