Economic growth in Asia was kindled by the remarkable post World War II recovery of Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, and stretching into the 1980s when Japan became the second largest economy in the world.
A particular characteristic of Japanese economic and urban growth was the heavy concentration of economic activity in the Tokkaido region (Tokyo – Nagoya – Osaka corridor), which was aided and abetted by an apparent conscious choice of concentrated infrastructure investment in this region.