You try carrying your bags miles from a suburban mall to the nearest train station or bus shop in a typical American city, and you'll quickly understand why Japanese train stations are hubs of economic activity...
Obviously, any dense enough city is quite different from American suburbs. Heck, I am from a 100k city in Spain, a country where even tiny villages are quite dense and you can find shops everywhere, and I am shocked that in rural Japan where I live now it is American-style urban sprawl and you need the car for everything.
In any case, my original comment about consumerism was about the constant barrage of new products that you see here. Go to your nearest konbini and there is always some ad about some new product, any popular enough manganime will trigger a deluge of merchandise, you have the million gachapon with the most ridiculous shit... I hope you get my point.
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You try carrying your bags miles from a suburban mall to the nearest train station or bus shop in a typical American city, and you'll quickly understand why Japanese train stations are hubs of economic activity...
Obviously, any dense enough city is quite different from American suburbs. Heck, I am from a 100k city in Spain, a country where even tiny villages are quite dense and you can find shops everywhere, and I am shocked that in rural Japan where I live now it is American-style urban sprawl and you need the car for everything.
In any case, my original comment about consumerism was about the constant barrage of new products that you see here. Go to your nearest konbini and there is always some ad about some new product, any popular enough manganime will trigger a deluge of merchandise, you have the million gachapon with the most ridiculous shit... I hope you get my point.