3 ms·
>The average small city or village is just a bunch of big box stores and houses scattered everywhere. This sounds much like rural America. Houses scattered ev
by shiroiushi 2y ago
>The average small city or village is just a bunch of big box stores and houses scattered everywhere.
This sounds much like rural America. Houses scattered everywhere, and a super Walmart.
The big difference I've noticed here in Japan (I live in Tokyo), at least from my window on the train going through rural areas, is that the houses tend to be clustered together much more closely. In rural America, everyone wants many acres of land to themselves, but in rural Japan, the land is usually used for farming and the houses are quite close together in a hamlet.
- pezezin 2y agoI understand what you mean, and perhaps "a collection of hamlets" is a more accurate description. In my experience, your perception depends heavily on your personal background. The city where I live (Misawa) hosts an American military base, and when talking with them nobody ever complaints about the urban sprawl, I guess it is normal for them. However, I am from Spain, a country where even small villages are very compact (we prefer to build all the houses together, and keep the farms outside), so for me Japanese villages feel very sparse. Another big difference is that in Spain we value public areas (the third space), and here public spaces range between infrequent and not-existent.