That it's considered an investment vehicle is downstream from the rising markets due to tight regulation which limit supply. In Japan what zones exist is standardized across the country and what zone applies to a given area is defined by the government in Tokyo. This prevents local homeowners to lobby for tighter regulation to strangle supply.
>That it's considered an investment vehicle is downstream from the rising markets
That's not what its downstream from, that's restating the same thing in financial terms. What it's actually downstream from is that Japan is a fully urbanized society. The reason why Americans cannot implement this is because houses are their little homesteads and castles, Fukuyama used the term "suburban villager" for this attitude (also prevalent in Greece and Eastern Europe etc.)
