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Tokyo is waayyyy cheaper to rent in than comparably prosperous/important cities in the US like NYC or SF. It's a metro of 40 million that's nationally importan
by TulliusCicero 5y ago
Tokyo is waayyyy cheaper to rent in than comparably prosperous/important cities in the US like NYC or SF.
It's a metro of 40 million that's nationally important on a level unseen in the US -- it's like you took NYC and SF and LA and combined them all into one megacity. And yet rent prices there are...well, they're still somewhat expensive, but less so than you'd expect, definitely.
NYC is more than 2x as expensive as Tokyo for rent: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Japan&city1=Tokyo&country2=United+States&city2=New+York%2C+NY&displayCurrency=USD https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...
This is particularly true if you look at the case of a 1 bedroom commuter (not in city center) apartment: $2200 in NYC, $700 in Tokyo. Almost like letting people building housing supply to meet demand actually works.
- DocTomoe 5y agoThe Greater Tokyo Area (and you have to take the whole area into account when talking about affordable housing) is about 5400 square miles, slightly larger than Connecticut, about 7 times the size of New York City, and still twice the size of the Bay Area. Tokyo "feels" knit closer together mostly because they don't suck at public transport.
- KptMarchewa 5y agoAnd has population density of 2,631/km2 compared to Bay Area's 431/km2. What's your point?
- TulliusCicero 5y agoA large portion of "Tokyo" includes mountainous areas where nobody lives. In any case, even if you expand your NYC search to include nearby parts of Jersey or whatnot, you're not gonna find $700 1br's as a common thing. And then if you look at the Bay Area having a low overall population density but it's still really expensive, it's pretty obvious what needs to happen.
- TedShiller 5y agoThat’s because Tokyo is not as dense, because he’s also huge by area.