Ever since ditching car culture and joining the urbanist cause (on the internet at least but that has to change), I’ve noticed that some countries always top the list when it comes to good urbanism. The first and most oblivious one tends to be The Netherlands but Germany and Japan also come pretty close. But that’s strange considering that both countries have huge car industries. Germany is (arguably) the birthplace of the car (Benz Patent-Motorwagen) and is home to Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Japan is home to Toyota, Honda, Nissan and among others. How is it that these countries have been able to keep the auto lobby at bay and continue investing in their infrastructure?
I’ve also lived in Japan and my experience is that people rarely fly domestically and almost always take the train. But since domestic travel is so expensive, their vacations are often international instead of within Japan.
Definitely not the case where I lived (rural Niigata prefecture), but I was friends with people who were definitely poor.