I recall reading an article saying that there is actually quite a lot of undeveloped / rural land in Japan, but people tend to live in the largest cities because large businesses want to be close to the areas of greatest political influence.
This is true in most places. The supposedly horribly expensive countries (U.K., Japan, Switzerland; to a lesser degree, the U.S.) are quite affordable outside of the major cities. And there are plenty of high-quality cities that aren't expensive-- analogues of Austin and Portland.
I've come to the conclusion that locating in a large city, for a business, and requiring people work in-office, is an unfunded mandate that borders on the inappropriate. It's worth having a corporate office there, of course; but expecting people to live in a high-COL area if they want to have a career at your company is not only classist, but probably a tactical mistake as well. Remote work poses a lot of difficulties, but it's the only thing that will save us from this catastrophic, worldwide real estate problem. (We should also work on high-speed, affordable trains... but one step at a time.)
Winner-take-all economics is somewhat inevitable, and the best that a government can do is to place a floor under it (i.e. it can't, and shouldn't, prevent the winners from shooting ahead; but it should prevent poverty for the less fortunate) but when WTA applies to places, you get wide swathes of joblessness and a few cities with robust economies but housing prices so severe as to constitute a return of debt bondage. Instead of indentured servants paying for their boat ride, now they pay a 500% housing premium for the ability to live there (i.e. access to the local job market). It's the return of hereditary oligarchy, with real estate being passed from one generation to the next and almost unaffordable on the legitimate market (due to regulatory corruption coming from entrenched, malignant interests-- owners trying to keep their property prices artificially high.)
No one asks, "Why did people drink so much in Communist Russia?" because it's taken as self-evident that Soviet-style communism was a gloomy, depressing system so "of course" people hit the vodka. Yet it surprises the hell out of people that urbanites under a runaway market system have stopped having children (and, in some sad cases, relationships and sex).
This is true in most places. The supposedly horribly expensive countries (U.K., Japan, Switzerland; to a lesser degree, the U.S.) are quite affordable outside of the major cities. And there are plenty of high-quality cities that aren't expensive-- analogues of Austin and Portland.
I've come to the conclusion that locating in a large city, for a business, and requiring people work in-office, is an unfunded mandate that borders on the inappropriate. It's worth having a corporate office there, of course; but expecting people to live in a high-COL area if they want to have a career at your company is not only classist, but probably a tactical mistake as well. Remote work poses a lot of difficulties, but it's the only thing that will save us from this catastrophic, worldwide real estate problem. (We should also work on high-speed, affordable trains... but one step at a time.)
Winner-take-all economics is somewhat inevitable, and the best that a government can do is to place a floor under it (i.e. it can't, and shouldn't, prevent the winners from shooting ahead; but it should prevent poverty for the less fortunate) but when WTA applies to places, you get wide swathes of joblessness and a few cities with robust economies but housing prices so severe as to constitute a return of debt bondage. Instead of indentured servants paying for their boat ride, now they pay a 500% housing premium for the ability to live there (i.e. access to the local job market). It's the return of hereditary oligarchy, with real estate being passed from one generation to the next and almost unaffordable on the legitimate market (due to regulatory corruption coming from entrenched, malignant interests-- owners trying to keep their property prices artificially high.)
No one asks, "Why did people drink so much in Communist Russia?" because it's taken as self-evident that Soviet-style communism was a gloomy, depressing system so "of course" people hit the vodka. Yet it surprises the hell out of people that urbanites under a runaway market system have stopped having children (and, in some sad cases, relationships and sex).