I dunno about this. I'm sure that what you say is true in many places, but I lived in Fukuchiyama, northern Kyoto, from 2001-2003 which seemed to be a fairly a

I dunno about this. I'm sure that what you say is true in many places, but I lived in Fukuchiyama, northern Kyoto, from 2001-2003 which seemed to be a fairly average city of 70,000, about 90 km from any substantially larger city. I happened to visit again recently, and I was struck by all the gleaming new construction, and the impressively rebuilt train station.