Fingleton is misguided. There is no real increase in living standards since the bubble was popped. Goods are getting cheaper, and Japanese people are increasingly consuming cheaper goods. If you only visit the major cities, you won't see the urban decay. If you travel outside of the urban cities, you'll see the decay in full bloom (a la Spike Japan blog.)
I'm sure that what you say is true in many places, but I lived in Fukuchiyama, northern Kyoto, from 2001-2003 which seemed to be a fairly average city of 70,000, about 90 km from any substantially larger city. I happened to visit again recently, and I was struck by all the gleaming new construction, and the impressively rebuilt train station.
These two statements contradict each other.
Now, it all depends, some of this choice could increase living standards (more PP) or it could decrease them (subpar goods).
> In the case of Japan over the last decade, we have seen a significant rise in popularity of inferior goods and a decrease in demand for premium goods. Japan’s most notable inferior good of the moment is “third-category beer” — a beer-like beverage with nearly zero malt content that sells for slightly less than real beer. Japanese consumers facing no economic constraint would choose Japan’s most iconic (and not particularly expensive) mass market beers such as Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori over third-category beer. So what does it say about the consumer market when Japan will soon have a majority “fake beer” market for malt-flavored beverages? Even with falling demand for beer-like drinks, third category beer is seeing growth. This is a sign that the consumer living standard considered normal just a decade ago has fallen dramatically into a new “basket of goods” that would once have be seen as only appropriate for the relatively destitute.
http://neojaponisme.com/2011/11/28/the-great-shift-in-japane... linking to http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/drink/2010-looks-bad-real-beer-62...