Yeah - I swear patio11 has written extensively about this, but on a quick search I couldn’t find it. Basically Tokyo builds proper housing supply so it’s easil

Yeah - I swear patio11 has written extensively about this, but on a quick search I couldn’t find it. Basically Tokyo builds proper housing supply so it’s easily affordable, but as a result housing is not a good place to invest money. In the US housing is seen as an investment which creates bad policy and perverse incentives to constrain supply in order to enrich existing owners. Housing can be affordable or a good investment, but it can’t really be both. Tokyo does this the right way and SF (along with the Bay Area and America generally) does it wrong. Housing in Tokyo is relatively cheap. Somewhat unrelated I found this one while looking which I loved when I first read it. It’s about a super cool tax policy Japan implemented to help rural areas that people leave for the city, it incentivizes people to send some of that money back: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2018/10/19/japanese-hometown-tax/