[Sukotto]

Here in Japan your neighbour can build pretty much anything they want (within zoning constraints) and there is little you can do about it.

The zoning here is pretty different than in the US though. The government created a national, unified zoning standard consisting of 12 zones.

Local governments can split their land into more-or-less arbitrary regions, and choose which zone type they want each region to have. They also have some control over how large the resulting buildings can be in each region by mandating the maximum ratio of floor space to land area for each region.

The main difference between Japanese and American zoning rules is that in the US, the zones are exclusive where-as in Japan they are (mostly) inclusive.

There's a fascinating writeup about it here: https://urbankchoze.blogspot.jp/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html

[Zach_the_Lizard]

We not only have zones, but we layer on historic districts, parking minimums, setbacks, etc., going further than just not mixing commercial and residential. We mandate certain lifestyles in a pretty big way. A big shock vs. living in Japan where one can choose very different lifestyles.

I also miss the freedom Japanese architects seemed to have, where a building shaped like a treehouse would be just one of several interesting buildings.

[InitialLastName]

It would be interesting to see if this is related to Japan's slightly bizarre real estate market. As I understand it, Japan has a culture that heavily emphasizes purchasing a newly built residence to live in for life. As such, the resale market for homes is limited.

Lots of NIMBYism is inspired by some level of home value protectionism. It's possible that if you don't expect to resell your home, you don't have to worry so much about protecting its value.