Tokyo has managed to keep housing prices pretty affordable (and while Japan's population may be shrinking, Tokyo's has continued to grow). Unsurprisingly, they

Tokyo has managed to keep housing prices pretty affordable (and while Japan's population may be shrinking, Tokyo's has continued to grow). Unsurprisingly, they build a LOT of housing and removed most legal/regulatory obstacles to building it a few decades ago. They issue more permits for new housing units in a year than the entire state of California does, even though California has more than double the population. (or for an East Coast comparison - they issue around 9x the housing permits that NYC does, even though the population is <50% larger). There have been many articles written on this topic by many publications that you can find, but here's one citation: https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3c60 https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...