My friends and family like to joke about "anywhere USA." There are places all across the US where the same design language, chain restaurants, etc are all the s

My friends and family like to joke about "anywhere USA." There are places all across the US where the same design language, chain restaurants, etc are all the same. There will be some differences in local business and in political/religious signage, but otherwise, they are cookie cutter, somehow feeling basically the same from Anchorage AK to Tampa FL. Importantly, these are all connected by car line. I think there are a few things that make Japan fascinating to anyone who lives in a car-oriented culture, and a very important aspect is that even the small, out of the way, rural towns are still connected via passenger train, which changes the relationship of the small town to the central hub in important ways like what's described in the article here. Getting off the train in a small town is very different than getting out of your car in a small town. You can find this same dynamic in the US, btw. You'll find that old rural towns, that grow up connected to the central hubs by either boat or by passenger train, have a lot of the same charm and feel. But if things are developed along roads, there's no presumption about walkability: they are designed for people to get in their cars and go from one parking lot to another. Anyway, I'm actually totally clueless about this and speculating with very little informed knowledge outside my lived experience. I should probably delete this comment.