No paywall https://archive.is/FL240

The upside of this is very cheap housing (compared to the US anyway). I lived in Osaka for 2 years in a new apartment and it was about $575/month. A buddy of mine bought a large house in the countryside for ~40k$. Housing as an investment provides incentive for property owners to limit housing to protect their investment. Also, they don’t directly mention in the article but these houses are mostly pre-fabricated and assembled very quickly.

I’m not saying it’s not wasteful, but I would much prefer the Japanese housing model to the American one.