I live in Japan and can tell you that those conditions lead to ugly, low standard buildings that seem to me to be among the very top complaints foreigners living here have about the place. The incentives are completely skewed here and seem just as likely to be corrupt as any other place. There's plenty of discussion about it on these boards, this one comes to mind https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26399071
As to the earthquakes/natural disasters bit for why they build relatively disposable homes - does that happen on the west coast of the US, for instance? I'm genuinely interested, if anyone knows.
The low standard one is reasonable as that is what keeps costs low. The alternative is high standard and high cost. You can't really get high standards for low costs.
If the government dictates that all housing needs to be high standard, the collateral damage to that policy is that you can only build housing that prices people out of the market.
> You can't really get high standards for low costs.
I agree but here they're also expensive, which, in my view, is a symptom of the corruption and lack of a free market.
> ugly is subjective so I won't touch on that.
Again I agree, but if you're into industrial estates with lots of concrete and overhead wires galore, then Japan is the place for you. I'm sure someone likes it, maybe the brutalists who made the ugliest parts of my country (the UK) after the war.
As to the earthquakes/natural disasters bit for why they build relatively disposable homes - does that happen on the west coast of the US, for instance? I'm genuinely interested, if anyone knows.