townships

The difference is largely in that Americans had access to more advanced technologies at the time they founded their townships.

I can imagine voices in these townships reaching for similar arguments about how beautiful the township is and how change is bad.

You can go to the townships, Lanaudiere, through every Montreal suburb and find the same phenomenon at work.

Say 6 out of 10 townships paid for the research which resulted in development of a cancer cure.

Would they then be able to deny the benefits of that cure to the other 4 townships?

They also lobby for other companies (or even townships) to not be able to set up their own fiber/cable connections.

It is much more like a loose federation of nearby townships than it is a city like New York City.

And you would always have holdouts, townships that would demand an extra something for their cooperation.

Maybe the real problem is that townships and such can dictate who can lay fiber cable.

Alternatively, maybe a bunch of townships could unite in a consortium to pay for research.

This dilemma is solved (at least in some states) with townships and neighborhoods seceding from the major city and incorporating their own.

I couldn't speak for Tokyo, but it is in Nagoya and many of the smaller townships.