In terms of economic development, Japan, South Korea and China have achieved in two or three decades what it took Western countries more than a century to accomplish.
Generally speaking, fast economic expansion creates a plethora of problems, including income gaps between individuals and between regions, disparities in income and infrastructure between urban and rural areas, environmental disruption, and unemployment.
Until the 1990s, Japan was a rare model that achieved rapid expansion while minimizing disharmony and disequilibrium. Balanced development of national land was the basis of national policy, and plans to expand railway, telephone, power supply and highway networks nationwide were taken for granted.