Europe and USA are both huge places so it depends what you mean. If you compare major east coast cities - Boston, DC, and NYC to European metros like Paris/ Madrid/ Lisbon the biggest tax on the citizens is the same in that it’s impossible to build anything so a huge % of income needs to go to housing.

▲

yorwba 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Well, Japan isn't much different in terms of the share of income that goes to housing: https://housingpolicytoolkit.oecd.org/2.H_conso.html

▲

zhdc1 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

East coast cities were built before modern building codes.

Something that, for some reason, people in the states don't want to accept is that - when given the choice - the vast majority of people prefer living in dense urban environments.

▲

cmatza 2 hours ago | parent [-]

OP addresses that. Japan is not particularly dense, especially outside of core downtowns.

You see the same dynamics in London and Paris.

People do not "prefer to live in dense urban environments" by urbanist standards.

They prefer to live in dense urban environments by North American standards, which can still be far less dense than urbanists really want.

▲

zhdc1 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> which can still be far less dense than urbanists really want.

And this was my comparison?

	▲	cmatza 14 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		May be an assumption on my part, but the language "people prefer to live in dense urban environment" is typical of urbanism-boosters - who definitely push a lot online that leads one to believe that anything less than inner Tokyo is unacceptable.