[thomasahle]

> Meanwhile on my social feed my Japanese friends will admire the large living spaces in the US.

This seems to be comparing urban Japan with rural America. From my experience in San Francisco the living spaces certainly aren't big.

[presentation]

If you compare the average apartment in SF to the average apartment in Tokyo, you’ll realize that the SF ones are actually quite spacious. Just, nobody knows how to use their space efficiently in the USA like people do in Japan.

That said the culture here, driven by the reality of living spaces, is to meet people outside of home, not invite people at home, allowing for more versatile design.

[nemo44x]

NYC apartments are nearly twice as large on average compared to Tokyo. In NYC bars and restaurants appear small to outsiders but go to Tokyo and wow, spaces are really small. That’s also a big part of its charm to be. But I couldn’t live like that day to day.

[bobthepanda]

what's interesting to note is that retail vibrancy seems to have a direct inverse relationship to square footage; it is much easier to get high utilization out of a smaller space and thus also easier to be profitable.

I've lived in both NYC and Seattle. Older neighborhoods predominantly with retail like the 25-foot storefronts or small corner stores common in NYC and older parts of Seattle have lots of business thriving, many of them in low-margin industries. Newer Seattle developments have restaurant spaces sized to fit 100-200 people, which is pretty hard to fill outside of maybe a lunch or dinner rush, and those tend to cycle out restaurants and stores like no tomorrow.

[ghaff]

Define "rural." The Bay Area is obviously especially problematic with respect to housing. But get 30-45 minutes out of many major cities, even along a commuter rail/light rail of some sort, and people have houses in places that, for better or worse, are not rural.