Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Hmm, here in my nighborhood a parking spot costs about $600 a month, highway tolls are stupidly expensive, it will cost me $70 in tolls to use the Aqualine for a round-trip to the countryside (about 60 miles away). Annual road tax is based on engine size, for my 6 liter V8 car that adds up to $80 per month, and then bi-annual inpsections are required, and are not cheap. And lastly is the cost of gasoline, which runs nearly $7 a gallon here.

This might sound good to those who dislike cars, but the costs apply to trucks as well, and pushes up the cost of all goods which require transportation (which is everything). Next, though Japan is a small country, public transportation does not go everywhere, and since driving to other parts of the country is a luxury few city-dwellers can afford (most Japanese live in the metro areas), the rural areas get few visitors, and are in steep economic decline. There are 8 million vacant homes in Japan now, and most of these are in the countryside.

This flight to the cities pushes up the cost of housing, and most people can afford only small apartments. Many of these are too small for families, so people forego having choldren. The lack of people in the countryside has resulted in a decline in farmers, the average farmer in Japan is over 60. And since there are no young people taking up farming, more than one-third of Japanese farmland is now undeveloped.

Being able to get around in a car cheaply is not necessarily a bad thing.