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The thing is Tokyo is a stupid city
They covered all their agricultural land on the floodplain in building it out. If shipments from the breadbaskets of China, Korea, and America stop they'll all starve. It would have never happened naturally.
The reason for the explosion in population is because of Japan's industrialization under the U.S occupation. As it expanded, the family unit needed more hands to work to survive as well as to replace the fallen soldiers. As Japan now exits its industrial phase, and can focus on the restructuring of its society we will see a parallel contraction or redevelopment in the city. Just like Japan will hopefully transition to a more peaceful utopian post-industrial society, hopefully Japan can reachieve a society that isn't depressive. That is if Japan doesn't get obliterated by the Chinese in the next war.
The United States took a different route. When the country industrialized it spread out and divided itself into little hamlets of suburbs working tirelessly to supply the bombed world with cars and agricultural equipment. After the baby boom, when the factories in the Midwest started to shut down because Japan and Europe got back on their feet, everybody fled to California and the Sun Belt and built more and more suburbs. We were in a position of advantage then, the general public still had a lot of money kicking around from the war. We were able to afford the materials and land as a society. But over the years, we filled out more and more subdivisions and tracts and the price of materials, land, and zoning regulations and labour and bullshit went up. Our money got evaporated by a bunch of little tax increases and social issues.
Our population remains more or less stable even though we are more or less post industrial in most parts of the country. The youth are locked out of the suburbs not just because of the money not trickling down, but because we're reaching the limits we imposed on ourselves physically
