Everyone important in the Bay Area already got theirs. If you're important enough, eventually you will get yours too.

NIMBYism is great if you're a somebody.

Yes, in communities like Cupertino, the cities themselves are downright hostile to housing: https://medium.com/yimby/the-latest-on-vallco-explained-9d37...

When the planning commission of a city likens housing advocacy to "an onslaught of anarchists and YIMBY Neoliberal fascists", rational process has pretty much broken down.

It exists everywhere

It is demonstrably worse in BA than in most other places in the US.

Places like Japan don't seem to have much of a problem with it at all.

Places like Japan have negative birthrates and restrictive immigration policies.

NIMBYism is a reaction to a sudden influx of newcomers to an area. As such, hot remote work spots like Bend, OR are very likely experiencing a similar NIMBYist mindset.

Tokyo has continuous growth, and almost no NIMBYism. While Japan as a whole has negative birthrates and restrictive immigration policies, Tokyo has neither.

The comment you’re responding to is a real, important difference between Japan’s response to growth (in the Tokyo area) and other cities and regions’ responses to growth. Handwaving it doesn’t help.

I'm curious what you think is the difference between Japan's response to growth versus other places. Given the fact that Japan zones on a federal vs local level, this already reduces the potential of NIMBYists blocking new development. However this does not mean that NIMBYism does not exist there.

It largely doesn’t exist there because they’re so monocultural. Zoning in the US was created explicitly to preserve racial divisions in neighborhoods.