Given your name, I guess you live in Japan, so I'll just give my opinion for others who have never lived here. I also think the title is misleading, though I wo

Given your name, I guess you live in Japan, so I'll just give my opinion for others who have never lived here. I also think the title is misleading, though I wouldn't express it so dramatically. One thing to consider is that Tokyo is a prefecture, not a city. There are rural areas of Tokyo (like really rural), though most of it is very suburban. Anybody who has lived in the suburbs in western countries would probably be fairly comfortable in most parts of Tokyo prefecture. It is true that in quite a few areas of Tokyo it takes a long time to get to central Tokyo. 2 hours is at the extreme, though. I live in very rural Shizuoka prefecture and I can get to Tokyo station in 2 hours if I time the bus and shinkansen perfectly. If you are on the train line, most places are no more than an hour away. It's pretty comparable to living in satellite cities in London, but the train is much better :-) If you are not on the train line, though, it can take quite a long time. Roads in Japan are very slow, especially in rural areas. It's not unusual for it to take me over an hour to drive 30 km or so if I need to go through several towns. So you definitely can find houses in Tokyo that will be 2 hours away from the city center, but I don't think anyone working in central Tokyo would buy those houses. I honestly don't think the example picture is representative of houses you'll find in Tokyo prefecture. They definitely exist in areas that are desirable, though. I think saying that you're probably looking at either a 1 hour commute by train or your are going to get a house jammed in wherever it will fit is correct. But it's not both at the same time. I don't often go to Tokyo, but I occasionally go to surrounding areas. Probably if I was looking at houses for commuting to central Tokyo, I would probably look at places in Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama as well as Tokyo. There is actually quite a lot of choice. The video linked in the article is well worth watching (as is anything from "Life Where I'm From" if you are interested in Japan) and is extremely balanced IMHO. Compared to other big city centers around the world, Tokyo and the surrounding area is quite affordable. Compared to Silicon Valley it's almost comically so, but Silicon Valley is really right at the other extreme.