On March 3rd, Recruit Holdings released their "SUUMO Livable Area Ranking 2022 Metropolitan Tokyo Edition". 

SUUMO is a dominant residential Japanese property portal with the most definitive data on buyers and renters nationwide.  SUUMO is wholly owned by Recruit Holdings, a publicly traded company under the ticker 6098 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. 

Men and women aged 20 to 49 years of age living in the Kanto region consisting of Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, and Ibaraki prefectures, were asked to select their top three most desirable municipalities and stations to live near via an internet based survey. 

The survey period was January 4th to 15th, with approximately 10,000 valid responses.

Yokohama Station on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line topped the list for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Kichijoji Station on the JR Chuo Line (2nd), Omiya Station on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line (3rd), Ebisu Station on the JR Yamanote Line (4th), Urawa Station on the JR Keihin Tohoku Line (5th). 

The top ten list continued with Meguro Station on the JR Yamanote Line (6th), Shinjuku Station on the JR Yamanote Line (7th), Shinagawa Station on the JR Yamanote Line (8th), Ikebukuro Station on the JR Yamanote Line (9th), and Kamakura Station on the Enoshima Electric Railway Line (10th).

Many of the stations that rose 10 or more places from 2021’s survey were in the suburbs, such as Nagareyama Otakanomori Station on the Tsukuba Express Line (from 39th to 16th), Kawagoe Station on the Tobu Tojo Line (from 46th to 30th), Tama Plaza Station on the Tokyu Denentoshi Line (49th to 37th), and Chofu Station on the Keio Line (68th to 50th).

Yurakucho Station on the JR Yamanote Line (52nd to 34th) was the only central Tokyo station that rose 10 or more places from the previous year.

In terms of the percentage of respondent voting locales, Saitama Prefecture (12.9%) and Chiba Prefecture (13.0%) had the largest percentage of respondents since 2006, while Tokyo had the lowest percentage at 47.7%.

Further Reading

SUUMO Livable Area Ranking 2022 Metropolitan Tokyo Edition (Japanese only; March, 2022)