Student-run housing in Japan

Japan has dormitories that are student-run. They are like American coops in many ways. One important difference is that they are all owned by their universities. In the states, this is less common (you can see it in the coops at Stanford, Cornell, and Oberlin). Another important difference is that they are much older. The oldest may about 50 years older than then oldest cooperative student housing in the US. They are also much bigger, far larger than what the American coop community believed possible. While the biggest single house in the States was the 200 person Barrington house in Berkeley (that got shut down for being out of control), the biggest is Japan is about 430 people. It is called Keiteki-ryo and it is still going strong.

Self-governed dorms (jichi-ryo; 自治 for "self-governed") are thought of as traditional. There used to be more but they bred dissent in the 60s and 70s and most were shut down from above. There are still a dozen or so around the country. Here is a list of them: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%87%AA%E6%B2%BB%E5%AF%AE

Let me know if you happen to know or learn more.