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Redditors Say This Japanese Hillside Is a Dead Ringer for San Francisco

Written by Christina CampodonicoPublished Feb. 27, 2023 • 3:15pm
Hinataoka residential area in Hiratsuka City, where houses with stylish exteriors are lined up September 14 2019. | 電車(新幹線)でゴー!/Wikimedia/Creative Commons

Local Redditors swear they’ve found a doppelganger of San Francisco in the hills of Japan—with some going so far as to say that “someone stole a piece of SF” and deposited it in a quaint residential neighborhood in the city of Hiratsuka. The sense of deja vu is being stoked by a photo posted to the r/sanfrancisco subreddit yesterday. It features a smattering of little boxes on a hillside, each sporting colorfully painted facades.

Look familiar?  

Hinataoka residential area in Hiratsuka City, Japan, where houses with stylish exteriors are lined up on Sept. 14, 2019. | 電車(新幹線)でゴー!/Wikimedia/Creative Commons

Internet sleuths on the Reddit thread say the enclave is called Hinataoka. Hiratsuka, the town where the homes are located, has a population of over 250,000 and is located approximately 32 miles from Tokyo and near three UNESCO World Heritage sites

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Some commenters said they were getting serious Glen Park vibes from the photo, while others were reminded of Daly City.  Others almost mistook the image for a picture of San Francisco.  

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One Redditor quipped that Japan hadn’t stolen this twinning neighborhood but that “that part of San Francisco had fled.” 

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A reverse Google Image search of the photo in question suggests that the internet is right on this one. According to a Japanese news article, the colorful row of houses are a cluster of 1980s tract homes developed by the Tokyu Corporation Group. Some suspect that the homes were designed so that they could be easily viewed through the train windows of a line of Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train that runs nearby—although a spokesperson for the company said that institutional memory around that development is long gone. 

Houses on Twin Peaks in San Francisco | Stock Photo

Although the homes came in shades of pink, blue, yellow and green, The Standard could not confirm whether the homes were indeed made out of ticky-tacky. 

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So what do you think? Is this Japanese neighborhood’s San Francisco long lost twin?

Side-by-side comparison of homes in San Francisco and homes in Hiratsuka City, Japan | Stock Photo/Getty Images; 電車(新幹線)でゴー!/Wikimedia/Creative Commons

Christina Campodonico can be reached at christina@sfstandard.com


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