alt Hacker NewsThis is a great article, but I think it’s hard to ignore that Japan’s culture of harmony is a big part of why they were able to choose sensible regulations that benefitted everyone. We struggle to pass even the most sensible land use reforms because entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall.
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It's also hard to ignore that Japan was bombed to smithereens in the 1940s and undertook a nationwide rebuilding effort that might have contributed to a more uniform approach to land use.
> because entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall.
You might say it's because we live in a "low trust society," but not for the reasons the people who usually invoke that term claim.
> Japan’s culture of harmony is a big part of why they were able to choose sensible regulations that benefitted everyone.
Is there evidence of that? It sounds like a broad stereotype of a complex, large country by an ignorant outsider.
> entrenched interests want to remain entrenched even if it hurts the system overall
Another way to look at that is prioritzing the individual over the system, a hallmark of liberty and human rights.
So America's culture of individual liberty is why people don't have the freedom to build whatever they want on the land that they own?