People living in Tokyo, especially those who don't own cars, can often be oblivious to the priorities of people living outside of Tokyo. So-called home centers have become a central facet of suburban people's lives, and while you can find a few within the borders of the capital, the metro ones are by necessity much smaller. The whole point of a home center, which contains jumbo-sized retail sections dedicated to everything necessary for everyday living, from food to furniture to tools, is that you drive your car to it. A huge parking lot is part of the bargain, literally and figuratively.

One of the most successful home centers is Joyful Honda, which has no relation to Honda Motors, though it is conspicuously friendly to car culture. The company operates 15 outlets, the biggest of which is located in Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, which is also the corporate headquarters. The Joyful Honda retail property in Hitachi covers, in the prosaic parlance of Japanese developers, the equivalent of 4.8 Tokyo Domes. Most of this real estate is taken up by parking lots, which can hold up to 6,800 vehicles. In land-scarce Japan, this is a huge investment and points to a sea change in the Japanese retail mindset. Traditionally, retail centers were built around train stations, even in suburban and rural areas. However, outside of large urban centers, retail complexes have become isolated, self-contained, destinations for motorists. Shoppers have to have parking; more importantly, free parking. At Joyful Honda, you don't even have to have your parking validated the way you would at a store in Tokyo. The prices rival those you will find at the cheapest discount retailers, which means the cost of the parking fields they control (Inzai, Chiba Prefecture: 5,000 cars; Ota, Gunma Prefecture: 5,700 cars; Mizuo-cho, Tama: 3,200 cars) are somehow absorbed.