I've lived in Tokyo and I am the author of this article. I have to say that the scale is completely incomparable here. Not only this, there are over 100 cities in China with a population of over 1m. There are 9 in the USA.
The thing I found lacking when I read this article was where you said "...for a fraction of the price."
Can you give me some understandable examples of what you could purchase for what prices?