3 ms·

Tokyo/Japenese housing regulation is often cited as evidence for this hypothesis. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https

• pkaye 8y ago
  The Japanese are used to living in tiny accommodations. If we follow their route we could probably reduce costs a lot. Get rid of parking spots. No outdoor patio. Can easily reduce the square footage by 50%.
  • jaredklewis 8y ago
    As far as I can tell, they basically don't build Japanese apartments without outdoor patios. No one has dryers, everyone hangs their clothes outside. But to your point, my anecdotal impression is that even though the average 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom in Japan Tokyo is smaller than an equivalent in the US, the price per sq foot in Tokyo is also much less than in New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. Hard to find reliable, cross-country data but this blog post [1] pegs price for rental square foot for SF at $4.75 and Tokyo at $2.79. It's also true about the parking, but again regulations are at play here. Minimum parking requirements are the norm, not the exception in the US. Developers can’t build less parking even if they want to. Even a giant metropolis like San Francisco didn't start to eliminate minimum parking requirements until the late 90s [2]. 1. https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/what-is-1500-worth-worldwide-rent-per-square-foot-around-the-globe/ https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/what-is-1500-wor... 2. https://www.livablecity.org/parking-history-sf/ https://www.livablecity.org/parking-history-sf/