> a study recently that showed that cities in Japan that ended up getting Shinkansen stations ended up almost always shrinking I welcome you linking to this st

> a study recently that showed that cities in Japan that ended up getting Shinkansen stations ended up almost always shrinking I welcome you linking to this study, because a naive explanation for parts of Japan shrinking would be Japan's overall population decline (i.e. shrinking demographics). So unless the study controlled for that, I'm rather disinclined to think that the Shinkansen by itself caused areas outside Tokyo to shrink. If anything, centralization happens because of the difficulty of transportation. Highways were what drove "white flight" to the American suburbs. Jammed highways and hellish commutes are driving gentrification. And centralization improves walkability, if anything. If I need to take a train to get into the city, then I need the city to be walkable after I get there, because I don't have a car with me anymore.