- the US allows overnight street parking in many places. In Japan overnight street parking is banned.
- the US mandates a minimum level of parking in pretty much all construction that in practice is very excessive; most developers build the minimum and nothing more, because they don't feel they need the parking (and often the lots are rarely full). Japan has some parking minimums but they are small. And there is no pressure to increase parking minimums to lessen demand for street parking, because overnight street parking is banned.
- when buying a vehicle, Japan requires "proof-of-parking" in a space that is either owned or leased by the buyer. No such mandate exists in the US, so you can buy a car without having provided a place to park it.
The above and other policies basically combine so that Japan has free-market parking with specific properties and buildings provided by the market as demand warrants. Whereas the US builds seas of parking without evidence of demand, so every property is surrounded with a sea of parking that pushes properties further from each other and causes driving to increase in a vicious cycle.
https://www.reinventingparking.org/2019/12/learn-from-japan....
good point. seems a little different in the US since lots of towns were settled after the industrial rev. Japan being an island I would imagine most land was already accounted for.
It might be that instead of constrained by travel, they are constrained by real estate value.
I think part of it was just a cultural preference, perhaps due to the communal nature of Japanese society. Another part of it was to avoid having to import oil, and to not waste wealth on cars. Gas, and vehicles, were taxed heavily, and still are.