(Photo by Mari Minakuchi)

It’s nearing noon, but the narrow, unlit corridor remains dark. Plywood doors line both sides of the stucco walls, all closed and locked. As I walk on, I find one door slightly open. On the other side is a room of roughly 60 square feet, with a folded futon mattress under the small window. Otherwise, there’s no furniture anywhere.

I’ve found myself in a flophouse in Yokohama’s Kotobuki-cho district. It was originally created to provide sleeping accommodations for day laborers who used to call this type of housing a “doya,” a slang term that comes from the Japanese word “yado” (“lodging”). It was supposedly coined because those living here couldn’t bring themselves to call these cheap flophouses proper lodgings.

Kotobuki is home to over 100 flophouses, which used to attract scores of day laborers and people looking to hire them. They’re the ones who nicknamed the area “Doyaville.” Young men in the prime of their lives flocked from all over the country to Doyaville looking for work, and also to cause some trouble—the latter earning the area a second nickname: “The Lawless Zone.”

However, around 1990, Kotobuki lost its ability to function as a labor market because of widespread mechanization and worsening economic situations. Soon, people with jobs to offer stopped coming around, and most of the workers went to find their fortunes elsewhere. Those who stuck around didn’t have an easy life. As they got older, they became unable to take on the more labor-intensive jobs. Abandoning the idea of looking for work outside of Kotobuki, many decided to go on welfare and locked themselves away in Doyaville’s cheap rooms. Today, over 70 percent of Kotobuki’s residents, most of them elderly bachelors, live in one of the local flophouses.

As Kotobuki struggled with its stagnant population, its economy collapsed, and the district was forgotten by the world. But then, one man shined a ray of hope on the area. Tomohiko Okabe, an architectural major, noticed that the simple Kotobuki flophouses would make perfect hostels for backpackers. So he partnered up with the buildings’ owners and remodeled the old lodgings into cozy, cheap guest rooms for tourists.

“It all started by accident after the flophouse owners talked to me about their problems with finding new lodgers.” The wall behind him is plastered with photos taken by travelers who have stayed at one of Okabe’s hostels.

Once the business started operating in 2005, word of mouth quickly spread, and each year Kotobuki has been seeing more travelers who could hardly believe they’ve found rooms for just a few thousand yen a night. With more outsiders visiting Kotobuki than ever before, scores of new people have started flocking to areas around the hostels on a regular basis.

Okabe laughs, remembering the neighborhood before he opened his first hostel. “There were loads of people pissing in the street. The stench was unbearable. I also saw many folks starting bonfires in old oil drums, and walking around the area completely naked.”

But how did Kotobuki change so much in just 10 years? Once the district became the center of attention all over again, the local administration started putting some effort into beautifying the area and improving the manners of its residents.

“Nobody would pay attention if I stressed how safe Kotobuki was myself,” Okabe says. “What they did pay attention to [was] all the tourists visiting the area. Soon, people started to notice that Kotobuki has gotten more backpackers, or that there were suddenly a lot more women around. Thanks to those things, the district’s image slowly began to change.”

Okabe has a soft spot for Kotobuki’s doya residents, all of whom he calls “pops.” Unemployed seniors living alone on welfare might seem like a sad sight, but some are actually enjoying their lives in Kotobuki. Okabe sees them as people who no longer have to toil away for a paycheck. “It’s no different than living off your retirement.”

“Lately, local office ladies have even started passing through Kotobuki on their way back home from work. In the past, they’d never have set foot in here,” Okabe explains with a smile.

And so the slow eradication of Kotobuki’s negative image continues.

This story was originally published on IGNITION. Visit http://ignition.co for more features on Japanese culture.