Sorry I don’t have links. When I visited many areas in Japan about 8 years ago, I just spoke to as many people as I could about it, which wasn’t many. Hardly an

Sorry I don’t have links. When I visited many areas in Japan about 8 years ago, I just spoke to as many people as I could about it, which wasn’t many. Hardly anyone else found it so interesting as I did but I have failed to do much research since. The Japanese people I spoke with found the American system to be the strange one. Not surprising. As for the architecture, it’s very creative! Neighborhoods don’t really have the conventions of conformity like we have. Each house is free to be whatever it wants, but they are all very small compared to American houses. Most norms in Japanese culture seem to favor the group, cooperation and environments of mutual respect. I do remember pointing out that a few (very few) of the houses looked pretty old and they told me those people have probably lived in them since they were built and just haven’t wanted a new one.