For a data point my wife and I live in a 1 bedroom apartment 4 and 8 minutes from 2 train lines by foot respectively, around 10 minutes from Shinjuku (central Tokyo) for about $650 - part of the trick is that unlike any place I’ve seen in US cities, my apartment is only 25m2, a size I’m perfectly OK with but would probably be impossible to find in most US cities. The density of my neighborhood is probably like 10x of my old neighborhood in SF and yet all the buildings are 1-3 stories and aside from the large number of pedestrians and proximity to several city centers, it feels smaller town than anywhere in SF.

Housing here isn’t built for the super long term, this is true - but it is built to much stricter codes than the US with respect to earthquake safety, and I wouldn’t say the typical modern American home is built to stand the test of time either.

Here they just build a lot more smaller units in much closer proximity here, and roads are much smaller which in itself probably doubles the buildable land in the city. They also have a strong transit network which means the available land to reasonably commute from is vast; you can get considerably cheaper than my rent or live in a bigger home if you lived say a 15 min walk from a train station a bit further from the center instead (similar properties to mine that are say a 45min-1hr commute to central Tokyo via bus/cycle + train can go for $350 or so, and you’d literally be living in proximity to farms (Tokyo contains a significant amount of rural countryside contrary to most people’s imagination).

I really think the American built environment is totally dysfunctional and prioritizes land speculators and motor vehicles over the people who actually live there. People here actually intend to live in their homes instead of being investment vehicles, to be a part of their neighborhoods, and to not risk their lives every time they enter public spaces. That makes it possible for working class people to afford to buy a home and for children to walk to school on their own.

Do you know to what extent the short life of Japanese housing is a cultural or geographic issue?

I've read that the Japanese simply don't like living in older buildings, so their housing stock is built with the understanding that it will be torn down and rebuilt on fairly short timescales. I've also read that the frequency of small earthquakes in Japan makes building for the long term very difficult (earthquake damage to structures is cumulative) so it's easier to build housing with a short design life.

However, I don't read a word of Japanese so I have no idea if either of these stories are accurate.

The country is in decline but cities like Tokyo and Osaka continue to experience significant growth - it’s the large number of small rural towns that are getting eviscerated.