I know where I want to live. (and do)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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Ah geez, like . . . way to rub it in, eh
ngl I'd be happy in all 3
Cali ain't so bad, mostly just silicon valley making things suck
Yes, but also Mercator projection.
Look how curved the US-Canadian borders are, and how Ellesmere island is compressed. This clearly isn't Mercator.
tokyo firmly believes in stacking
Canada population: 41.4 million
California population: 39.4 million
Greater Tokyo Area: 37.4 million
Almost similar GDP as well
Canada GDP (2026): $2.51 Trillion USD
California GDP (2025): $4.25 Trillion USD
Greater Tokyo Area (2022): $1.82 Trillion USD
Wide Spread but still all in the low Trillions
California is inflated by Silicon Valley stuff. Maybe left-over Hollywood prestige, as well.
Japan isn't known for it's awesome economy, but it's surprising world city Tokyo is still doing worse than all of Canada including the backwaters.
I wonder how they're determining what's in Tokyo for the GDP calculation. For example, companies' HQs there vs actual factories or whatever they own being elsewhere.
It's not surprising because GDP does not reflect quality of life in any form whatsoever. GDP is not a measure of wealth it's a measure of feverish, extractive, mindless and destructive activity.
Sure, when you go to the store and buy food so you don't starve, that's mindless destructive activity. /s
It's definitely not a measure of wealth, if you know what it is, because it's more of a proxy for income and productivity. And in the end, it correlates decently well with actual lifestyles. (Quality of life is more nebulous; there's miserable rich people and happy hut-dwellers)
Doing Worse is subjective.
Higher GDP ≠ Doing Better.
The US has some of the highest GDP per capita on earth but that doesn’t mean it (or its economy, if you don’t define economy just as stock market go brrr) is doing well.
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California also offers an agricultural powerhouse of productivity, oceanfront tourism, and ongoing techbro circle jerks.
Oh right, a lot of produce that makes it up here is from California, although we've noticeably weaned off of it over the course of the trade war.
I did mention the techbros. If the AI bubble pops, and geopolitics breaks the walled garden monopolies, it might end up a lot closer to Canada.
I wonder if you take out fossil fuel and logging out of Canada’s GDP if it still would be higher than Tokyo’s. Not much logging and oil drilling going on in Tokyo I reckon.
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The more you think about it, the more insane it is, like... wow
Tokyo demands the sharpest elbows of the three.
80% of þe population of Canada lives South of Minneapolis, MN., USA.
This picture looks like Canada stabbed the USA in the neck and forgot to clean up after, jeez.
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You made Saddam too small.
Makes you wonder why housing prices in Canada are so ridiculously high then when they have so much free land space.
do you want to drive 3 hours to work every day?
You can do better than that. I'm not sure how far you have to get from Calgary or Edmonton before abandoned, falling apart farmhouses start, but it might be only 45 minutes.
And if you're in a random part of the north, it's more like weeks of offroading.
Edit: Obviously, that 45 minutes is still enough to discourage most buyers. You might still be 20 from the nearest stores of any kind. So, the point stands, most of the land isn't acceptable for most people.
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Considering we have like 9% of the world's entire forests, where would you like us yo build these houses?
Construction is the bottleneck.
On why construction is the bottleneck, you'll hear several theories, but just physically having land isn't the problem.
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there are too many people in Tokyo. like come on guys. there are other cities.
The problem is, the best educational institutions, best-paying jobs, and most quantity of open positions are in that area. Without spreading that out, you won't get the people who would rather live elsewhere out. We do have worker shortages here in the countryside, but they're often manual labor which people are less keen on.
I doubt you've been or lived here if you think it's very dense for a large city. Frankly its extremely spread out. Most buildings are quite short or single family homes. Compared to the skyscrapers of Chinese cities, its a lot closer to American suburbs.
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So Tokyo has 1 moose, California has 100 moose, and Canada is overrun by moose. Got it!
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