Tokyo seems to have done this. It’s not cheap by any means, but rent seems relatively affordable relative to pay (and very cheap compared to expensive cities in North America).

I wonder if part of the reason is that housing is not an investment vehicle in Japan (probably due to the Japanese preference for newer, more modern builds and the fact that housing is a depreciating asset in an earthquake prone region).

In most parts of the world, housing is tied to land, and land is very expensive. What makes things worse in North America is cultural dislike of verticality —- people want to preserve a museum of their low-rise neighborhoods and don’t want any tall buildings to block the view. That’s fine, but the cost is unaffordable housing.

I think it's simply illegal to build housing like Tokyo does in every US city, and often every project over 3 stories needs community input and faces environmental lawsuits over things like shadows

"Urban" planning in the US is actually the art of urban destruction.

For nearly every maximum or minimum that the zoning and code sets, flipping the direction would be better. Have parking maximums instead of minimums. Have density minimums rather than maximums.

Make those who want to have too much parking get exceptions and be vetoed by a handful of people showing up on a Tuesday afternoon meeting. Let those who want the "luxury" of low density living in urban cores be the ones begging the neighborhood busybodies and control freaks for the chance to under build in prime locations.

Japan has detailed zoning restrictions, including the shadow a building can cast on a neighbor's lot. Maybe there are fewer lawsuits because the law is clear so it is easy to know if you are following it. https://ranjatai.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/sunlight-on-japane...

There's two big differences:

1) clarity of law without local community process that overrides what the law says you can build,

2) extra capacity to actual build. Almost 100% of land is "built out" according to zoning, meaning that almost no land allows building anything more than already exists. In fact this downzoning was so intense that many many buildings would never be allowed to rebuilt, including iconic buildings.

We have literally outlawed cities in the US, due to the wishes of people that want suburban automotive lifestyle to replace city life.

Yeah I think that is the big difference. In the US it doesn't matter what the actual rules are, the lawsuits will come regardless and drive up costs massively, and many places allow local councils to reject buildings without reasoning.

This is in the category of "things I believe I read from a reputable source, but which I can no longer definitively attribute", but my understanding is that one contributor to Tokyo's lovely and specific density is that its zoning laws are pretty relaxed, and on top of that they are not very strictly enforced. This is maybe less workable in a society with higher variability in people's judgment of what is ok.

And the sheer amount of people. It is very fun to have so many people who are at least semi-proud of the city they live in. Embracing both the chaos and the calmness of 6am on weekeneds.

And yet Japan has a loneliness crisis so severe they created a government minister position to address it.

Why not remote work? Why should a few cities reap all the benefits of these jobs? Spread the wealth!