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Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to na

by gizmo 3y ago

Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to name a few. Calling Japan cramped for space is a stretch. Japan is also not having any kind of managed population decline, unless they choose counterbalance old people dying with immigration. But so far it doesn't look like Japan is eager to embrace immigration. And that will result in a country with many old people and few working-age people. Hard to thrive with such an unbalanced population. That's why the article calls it a crisis.

jfim 3y ago
Japan is also 73% mountains, so the populated areas are much denser than a simple population divided by area calculation would give.
NovemberWhiskey 3y ago
>Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to name a few. Calling Japan cramped for space is a stretch. But relatively little of Japan is actually livable: if you look at Honshu, most of the population is in plains on the coast, and most of the inland area mountainous and hardly inhabited. For example, about a third of the population of Japan lives on the Kanto plain which represents just 4.5% of the land area.
marcusverus 3y ago
> Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to name a few. Calling Japan cramped for space is a stretch. This is good rhetoric but poor logic. The mere existence of denser-populated places has no bearing on whether a particular place is too densely populated, any more than the mere existence of more polluted places has any bearing on whether a particular place is too polluted. > Japan is also not having any kind of managed population decline, unless they choose counterbalance old people dying with immigration. The idea that mass immigration is the only way to manage population decline is absurd and unserious.
- bbogdn2 3y ago
  I've only heard this through word of mouth, but I heard a theory that one of the biggest reasons for the decline is because the work culture doesn't leave much time for life outside of work, diminishing the possibility of starting new families.

by gizmo 3y ago

jfim 3y ago

Japan is also 73% mountains, so the populated areas are much denser than a simple population divided by area calculation would give.

NovemberWhiskey 3y ago

>Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to name a few. Calling Japan cramped for space is a stretch. But relatively little of Japan is actually livable: if you look at Honshu, most of the population is in plains on the coast, and most of the inland area mountainous and hardly inhabited. For example, about a third of the population of Japan lives on the Kanto plain which represents just 4.5% of the land area.

marcusverus 3y ago

> Japan is nowhere near the most densely populated country on earth. It's the 40th. Less dense than Belgium, Israel, India, Singapore, and South Korea, just to name a few. Calling Japan cramped for space is a stretch. This is good rhetoric but poor logic. The mere existence of denser-populated places has no bearing on whether a particular place is too densely populated, any more than the mere existence of more polluted places has any bearing on whether a particular place is too polluted. > Japan is also not having any kind of managed population decline, unless they choose counterbalance old people dying with immigration. The idea that mass immigration is the only way to manage population decline is absurd and unserious.

bbogdn2 3y ago
I've only heard this through word of mouth, but I heard a theory that one of the biggest reasons for the decline is because the work culture doesn't leave much time for life outside of work, diminishing the possibility of starting new families.