On Monday evening, the delicate battle to stop a nuclear catastrophe from occurring was waged on Japanese soil, less than 100 km from Tokyo, where 35 million people live, while our nation was glued to the Bachelor during prime time.

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It is now more costly to live in London and Paris than in Tokyo, which was unseated from the top spot in last year's survey.

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To put it yet another way, coastal Californians would have to live cheek-by-jowl as Japanese people in the megalopolis that stretches from Tokyo to Osaka do to have any chance of a high-speed rail service that offered at least half a dozen trains an hour and did not require huge tax-payer subsidies.

ECONOMIST: High-speed trains