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by ethbr0 1440 days ago
That explains it! I hadn't thought about the systemic flywheel caused by real estate valuations. Where if depreciation is a market assumption, values depreciate, which impacts financing options. And people expect values to depreciate, so people don't maintain and renovate, which ultimately fulfills the depreciation prophecy.
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This systemic expectation also has other effects.

- construction is really big business in Japan, and as a result has deep ties to politics and is a usual beneficiary of Japanese stimulus programs (of which there have been many, since Japan has tried and failed at spending its way out of deflation)

- NIMBYism on buildings is much lower than in the US or Europe, due to the expectation that they are temporary

- because of the lack of NIMBYism, Japanese architects get a lot of leeway to build cutting edge projects, and so are very well represented in the world of star-chitecture