@skinnylatte You know more about this than me, and since you mention it...
When I'm going off on a lefty soap box about cost of living and saying "it doesn't have to be this way!" I'll drop that Tokyo exception as an example of how we could be doing better.
Am I an ignorant asshole for saying that, or is it possible for some of how they do it in Tokyo to be adopted elsewhere? I know it is complicated...
(...and that I really don't have a handle on any of this, really.)