I understand what you mean, and perhaps "a collection of hamlets" is a more accurate description. In my experience, your perception depends heavily on your per

I 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.