This has nothing to do with historic preservation. Berkeley has even gone so far as declaring a parking lot as historic to block construction of an apartment building.

Tokyo is not even close to being affordable? A 25m^2^ 1bd is still roughly 1400 usd per month. You can get it down to 800 usd ish if you only want a small 15m^2^ studio. Those kinds don't come with any kitchen and you only have a mini fridge. And that's just the rent alone.

Then you get hit with the tokyo salary which depending on the sector you work in could be 20 to 60 percent of a pay cut. The median salary is about 40k usd in Tokyo.

Like sure there are benefits but Tokyo is not affordable, just look at the rise of adults in their 20s and 30s living with their parents in Japan, and even the rise of unemployed throughout asia (south korea and japan leading this metric)

Edit: i forgot exponent sign is considered formatting

We have zoning and planning processes here in the UK too, called different things but doing the same job.

All building developments require planning permission.

This is required for construction of new property, extending and changing existing property, and changing the use of property, such as from commercial to residential or visa-versa.

As part of the planning process the authorities will look at what you intend to do, where you intend do do it, and ensure that makes sense. You can't just smack a huge store in a residential neighbourhood for example, nor can you buy up retail property on the cheap and turn it into apartments.

If we didn't have planning permission it would be an absolute nightmare.

What does this mean? What does zoning have to do with being American or not?

It's not at all just an American thing lol

Zoning is the most common regulatory urban planning method used by local governments in developed countries.[3][4][5] Exceptions include the United Kingdom and the city of Houston, Texas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning

Zoning is not a bad thing, bad zoning is. Zoning can stop there being massive polluting factories right outside people’s homes and outside of fragile ecosystems, for example. Outside of airports it requires builders to include AC so that people don’t have to have their windows open to cool their homes(because of the noise). The reason people love old European cities with all their character is to do with zoning laws.

The problem with the US, and us in Canada too, is that zoning is done incredibly poorly. Shitty neighbourhoods with little-to-no mixed-uses and two-story max buildings fucking sucks. I’m glad I live in Montréal in one of the three-story walk-ups with a Depanneur across the street and all the shops I need around the corner down my neighbourhood’s main street.

Anyway the point is that regulations and control or better than no regulations and control but we have a responsibility to do it well, something places like US are famously bad about.