Redditors say this Japanese hillside is a dead ringer for San Francisco

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Local Reddit users swear they’ve found a San Francisco doppelgänger in the hills of Japan, with some going so far as to say “someone stole a piece of sci-fi” and hid it in a quaint residential area of ​​the city of Hiratsuka. The feeling of deja vu is fueled by a photo posted yesterday in the r/sanfrancisco subreddit. It consists of several small boxes on a hillside, each of which is decorated with colorfully painted facades.

Look familiar?

Internet sleuths on a Reddit thread say the enclave is called Hinataoka. Hiratsuka, the city where the houses are located, has a population of over 250,000 and is located about 32 miles from Tokyo and close to three UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Some commentators said the photo evoked a serious Glen Park vibe for them, while it reminded others of Daly City. Others almost mistook this image for an image of San Francisco.

One Reddit user joked that Japan didn’t steal this twin city, but “this part of San Francisco got away.”

A reverse image search on Google on the photo in question reveals that the internet is the right of the photo. According to a Japanese news article, the colorful row of houses is a group of 1980s houses designed by Tokyu Corporation Group. Some suspect the houses were designed to be easily seen through the windows of the Japanese Shinkansen bullet train that runs nearby, though a company spokesman said the institutional memory of the development is long gone.

Although the houses were painted in shades of pink, blue, yellow and green, The Standard could not confirm if the houses were actually made from glulam.

So what do you think? Is San Francisco the long-lost twin of this Japanese area?

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