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I think the greatest incentive would be to normalize remote work.

Offering tax benefits to companies that move out of Tokyo might be effective but only in the long term.

Most people aren't as enthusiastic about remote work as people are on Hacker News. You cannot make teachers, most doctors, janitors, drivers, etc. Work From Home.

Besides, it's one thing to Work from Home from a beautiful place vs. a middle of nowhere town. I don't see many people on Hacker News moving to Nebraska or the Sahara to Work From Home.

The infrastructure to adequately support WFH did not exist or was not accessible from my SILs pov as a teacher. Doctors can perform quite a bit through telehealth appointments and request that you come to a clinic onsite for labs when necessary.

My clinic has an urgent care team on site for labs and immediate issues that allows for PCPs to work from home. It hasn't been bad at all for them or for me in treating a congenital health condition.

Very hard to effect that change if working culture is built on the 'visibility' of late hours and long nights in the office.

If they can shift pretending to work in an office to pretending to be "online", that actually might be a pretty big QOL improvement for much of the population, basically for free, and maybe even at some savings overall if it takes pressure off Tokyo.

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