Japanese houses are quite different from US ones. My in-laws live in a house in suburban Chiba well outside Tokyo, but it has literally no garden space and the neighborhood is so densely packed a taxi can't even pull into the little laneway it's in. Within a 100 meter radius there's a grocery, a drugstore, several restaurants and more, and everybody gets around on foot, by bicycle or by bus.

tbh a yard seems less necessary when you can walk everywhere

And kids can actually walk places by themselves, have social lives and develop some independence instead of being stuck in the backyard.

I want this for my kids (stuck in US suburbia), but have instead opted for them to grow up close to their grandparents. I’m not always sure that I’m making the right trade off, and it annoys me that I even have to make such a choice.

Anyway, it’s been over 20 years since I visited Tokyo, and I’ve been to many major cities since. Tokyo remains my favorite.

If you haven't seen it already, the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes has a great video making the other decision (ie. moving to the Netherlands) with some compelling reasoning: https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

They do, Tokyo is full of detached homes, and the people living in them don't need a car. (some have cars, some don't, but a car is not needed, and even those who have one, chances are they can't use them for things like grocery shopping etc even if they wanted to)