And you can find houses just as big in Japan, and in large parts of Europe. Not the point.

Compare developer salaries with square meter prices. Anyone complaining about Japan being unaffordable clearly doesn't understand the problem is almost universal among developed countries. The only way you're getting past that is having a high income. Of course it's going to seem small for US developers used to being in the upper echelons of the middle class in a country with relatively low prices compared to CoL.

The moment you're not an office worker and/or trying to live close to the city to not have a daily commute over an hour, you're pretty much in the same position as anywhere else in the developed world.

Yes, and most of the world (and even most of developed world) are neither Canadian, Australian or American. Europe and Asia tend to have smaller homes & the latter alone accounts for more than half the world's population.