Only in an exaggerated meme sense. reality is much more complicated.

The average Tokyo apartment size is 390 sqft, while the US average is above 2,000 and climbing.

Americans could have homes 10% the price, but they would mostly refuse to live in them even if they were sold at cost.

Why did you compare home size in a city to home size in a country? Average Japan home size is about 1000 square feet, smaller but not that much smaller.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1289345/japan-average-si...

Because the meme/myth about disposable Japanese housing comes from dense urban environments like Tokyo.

It is largely a result of tax policy and construction methods between 1960-1990 where it made sense to gut apartments after they depreciated for tax purposes.

In Japan, property tax decreases to zero over time, but resets if you upgrade it. There for people gut and remodel before selling their units so they get the benefit of a higher price, but the buyer pays the taxes.

> Because the meme/myth about disposable Japanese housing comes from dense urban environments like Tokyo.

But then you should compare home size to something comparable, like Tokyo to New York city, not Tokyo to USA.

I Think I provided the appropriate comparisons given the premise:

"Why doesn't American real-estate behave like an exaggerated example of Japanese real-estate?"

The answer is of course that there are significant differences between the two groups being compared.