My experience is in a city that has not been positively affected by globalization. I know the housing market is quite different in the tech hubs of the country.
[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dentists.htm [2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
People also confuse revenue with profit. My coworker's OB/GYN has great revenue, but her insurance costs are amazing, almost as much as my salary.
From memory of my kids birth the hospital direct bills expensive equipment, certainly my buddies wife did not personally fund the construction of the birthing center room, however if my dentist wants a new x-ray or new chair AFAIK its literally cash out of his checking account.
Its comparing apples and oranges. Much like comparing U3 employment stats in an employee culture like the USA where as in Japan I understand they hire once a year for new grads and if you don't make it into a real job at a real company (and very many don't) its a lifetime of either NEET or temp work, so their concept of U3 means very little compared to our concept of U3. Their concept of U3 is kind of like our concept of U3 of military service academy recent officer graduates.
(This is in pretty stark contrast to my experiences in America, where I spend most of my waking time at home, even when hanging out with friends.)
When I came to that conclusion, suddenly the density didn't bother me so much. It was a change in mindset rather than actual physical space.
I on the other hand would never want to live downtown. I like the suburban feeling. Love it. I commute for an hour and third. Downtown areas just feel too busy for me; congested, noisy, claustrophobic.
Edit: Addendum, Toronto native.
Yet even with that, it took 3 police cars to get a dude with a ton of warrant who has been attacking local women to get off from my stairway...for the second time in 2 weeks. We keep having to call out to get drunk homeless people from my parking lot, and crack addicts hide by the door to our storage rooms.
You can pay millions and still deal with that crap. Or you can move a 30 minute drive away and have a fancy house with a yard and instead of drunk people screaming you'll hear your neighbors kids screaming at each other while playing in a pool (which most people like better).
I'm a city person, but it's not hard to figure out why people would not want to deal with the city, and why people in the city quickly become NIMBY.
Now, I hear Japanese cities a somewhat more civilized. It might be a stereotype, but if its true and people can actually respect each other in close quarters, it changes the game completely.