Parts of Amsterdam have that sort of feel, but it’s definitely more mixed. Not crumbling, but old and making do since it’s fine.
Economically, Japan has been in stagnation since the late 80s.
That's a nice way to put it, it's been actually decreasing clearly over time since 1989, with ups and downs on the way: https://mebfaber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/japan.jpg
Chart source: https://mebfaber.com/2009/12/20/japan-the-us-and-the-lost-de...
Amsterdam is basically a super old village built in a swamp that it interesting for its history, architecture, culture, and so on. Or for the red light district and weed shops, if you prefer that. It's not a display of infrastructure.
The Netherlands has some of the best developed infrastructure nation-wide: roads, railways, and most famously its massive water management systems, as half the country is below sea level.
It is also very well developed economically (punching far above its tiny weight), technically, and socially (hybrid welfare system).
By comparison, many parts of the US feel like a 3rd world country.
I am being a nitpicker here, but I think there is no correlation between country size and level of economic development. Many of the richest polities in the world are quite small. Places like Singapore & HK come to mind.
I think bigger countries, even if they are "1st world," can sometimes look rather rough, because there is a lot of variation between different regions / municipalities / neighborhoods. It can be surreal sometimes, but it is what it is.
For example, would you expect the Netherlands, smaller than a typical US state, to be the world's #2 food exporter? From a tiny country that is also extremely densely populated?
To produce a number of mega corporations like Unilever, Shell (partly dutch), Philips, Heineken, the like...and this doesn't even begin to describe lesser known companies in extremely heavy transport, water management, mega scale infrastructure.
Combined with the extremely favorable location of being a distribution hub (Rotterdam), indeed similar to Singapore.
So I basically agree, it doesn't require a large country to produce a lot of economic output. Yet I'd still say the food export fact is a crazy one, as you would expect that to very much be surface-related.
I would expect food production to be area-related. Rotterdam is Europe's busiest seaport, and one of the busiest seaports in the world, so I'm not the least bit surprised that the Netherlands is one of the world's top food exporters.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...
Which of course is surface-related, so the remarkable/surprising fact is the intensity of it, and the stunning yields.
"Feeding the world" from a very small surface and with very little human labor is quite a marvel. I think any farmer, from any other country in the world, will have their minds blown when they see it with their own eyes.
That's because you're comparing small nations to a nation that is better compared to the EU in size and diversity. The EU has dozens of third-world ghetto zones and the bottom 10% of the EU is exceptionally poor by first world standards.
The poorest areas of France also look like and function like the third-world, the quasi ghettos on the outskirts of eg Paris. It's more rare for large nations to not suffer from such poverty problems, and few accomplish that (Germany and Japan get close).
The largest population nations: Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, India, US, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Mexico
Do I need to point out the condition of the bottom 1/3 or 1/2 in most of those nations?
Ever read up on how the bottom quarter in Russia - Europe's largest nation by population - are faring the past decade (it's beyond dire, to put it politely)?
It's a small miracle the US isn't far worse off than it is.