I have properties in two of those cities and I'm also fairly frequent to all three cities. I think there are pretty big differences. I'll only cover Tokyo and Seoul where my properties are located in. They're more alike than Taipei, but the difference between these two is still huge. First off, residential properties.
Tokyo 23 wards, housing types
- low to mid rise (3-5 to 6-19 stories) and high rise (20+ stories) apartment 55% (30% 6+ stories, 25% 3-5 stories)
- low rise (1-3 stories) apartment 15%
- detached house 30%
Seoul proper, housing types
- high rise apartment 43% (typically 15-35 stories, some 50-70 stories or more)
- low rise apartment 55% (1-5 stories)
- detached house 2%
They might look similar except for the popularity of single family detached house, but Tokyo apartments and Seoul apartments are not even similar to each other at all. Apartments in Tokyo can be divided into three sub-groups. '
Mansion' (マンション, usually 3-19 stories), '
Towerman' (タワマン, short for tower mansion, usually 20+ stories), and '
Apart' (アパート, short for apartment, usually 1-3 stories). Apart is the cheapest housing type. They're mostly renter-occupied 2-3 storey buildings, and almost every units are very small studios, often <200sqft. Tenants are usually working class, single person households. Mansion/Towerman units are significantly bigger than Apart units (typically 400-2,500 sqft). Also, these are mostly owner-occupied units (except for 400-600 sqft units). Anything around (or over) 1,000 sqft could be considered as a pretty big unit, and 2,000+ sqft units are basically monster size. Towerman units are generally more expensive than mansion units (roughly $1.5-3.0k/sqft for towerman units, and $1-2k/sqft for mansion units). But those (tiny) monster units are more common in
low/
mid rise mansions, though still very rare. There are a few 2,000-4,000 sqft towerman units, but most towerman do not have such big units (often capped at <1,000sqft, or <1,500sqft, or <2,000sqft). The reason behind the limited availability of bigger unit is the popularity of single family detached house (called 一戸建て or 一軒家) in affluent households. Although there are many
cheap/small/affordable single family detached houses in Tokyo 23 wards, detached houses are
the most common/
popular type of dwellings for affleunt buyers, thus limited demand and availability for big mansion units.
Regardless of apartment types, Tokyo apartments are mostly standalone independent buildings. There are some apartment complexes, but even those complexes do not have many buildings. This is completely opposite in Seoul. High rise apartments in Seoul (called 'Apart' 아파트) are generally belong to apartment complexes and those complexes are huge. An apartment complex with less than 10 buildings (or <1,000 units) would be considered small. Medium sized complex usually have 10-30 buildings (and 1-3k units). Big apartment complex have 30-100 buildings and 3-10k units. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see
5-10 different apartment complexes (medium to big)
sticking right next to each other. The counterpart of 'towerman' would be
mixed-use towers (called 주상복합). But even those mixed-use towers often belong to
a multi building complex in Seoul.
Floor count varies depending on the age of apartments.
Older complexes usually have 15-25 stories building, and
newer complexes usually have 35 stories. Mixed-use towers often have more than 35 stories, because they're sitting on commercial lots which allow higher FAR. Also newer apartments tend to have smaller units (600-1,200sqft) regardless of its price. But older apartments could be divided into two groups, and pricier group usually have bigger units (1,200-2,000 sqft). Most typical unit size is 900 sqft, which is somewhat bigger than typical mansion/towerman units in Tokyo. And this size difference is very common phenomenon when you're comparing Tokyo vs Seoul. Almost everything in Seoul is somewhat bigger than Tokyo's counterpart (roads, cars, parking spaces, streets, alley, hallway, home appliances, restaurants, department stores, grocery stores, etc). There are only few exceptions. One of them is size of convenience stores. Tokyo has bigger convenience stores than Seoul, because their roles are slightly different to each other.
Low rise apartment is commonly referred as 'Villa' (빌라), which is sort of umbrella term for various types of dwellings. Most 'Villa' only have smaller units (300-800sqft) and they're much cheaper than high rises (high-rise 'apart' $1-3k/sqft, low-rise 'villa' $200-900/sqft). So they're mainly working class and lower middle class dwellings. However, there are some
luxury villa, which only got either 19 or 29 or 38 units in the building (mostly low rises, but there are
some tall ones with 38 units). It's bigger than most high rises (mostly 2-3k sqft units), but anything over 3k sqft is quite rare due to the punitive taxation on >3000sqft units. Anyway, these type of villa is rare enough, so unless you specified it as luxury villa, no one will imagine this type of villa.
Detached houses are very rare (only 2-3% of housing stocks). It wasn't always like this, but many detached houses (especially the smaller ones) have been demolished to build either villa units (either low rise apartments, or a multi family house, or low-rise mixed-use house), because detached house owners almost always could make some profit with those conversions. There are also some difference in terms of construction, building materials, etc. For example, Japanese single family house and low-rise 'apart' are mainly wood buildings, but there are very few wood buildings in Korea, regardless of the types of housings.
Next up, roads and highways. Seoul proper do not have much of highways. They got a half circle highway, and two highways on each side of Han River which cut thorugh the middle of Seoul (West-East) and 3-4 more highways radiating from these 2 cut-through highways, either to North or South. So zero full loop, zero North-South full cut-through highway. They have one loop highway but that's located outside of Seoul, thus almost useless for residents of Seoul. Also, there is no highway which cut directly through the three cores of Seoul (CBD, GBD, YBD). CBD don't have any highways nearby. GBD/YBD have some highways surrounding them, but those highways are somewhat far from the central point of GBD and entrance/exit ramps are very scarce. On the contrary, Tokyo has 2 full loop (and some more loops outside of 23 wards) and 11 highways radiating from the loops, and entry/exit ramps are much more common. As a result, all major areas in Tokyo, such as CBD(Marunouchi/Ohtemachi), Kasumigaseki, Ginza, Shinjuku, Shibuya, have good highway access. Also, due to the proximity between buildings and highways, Tokyo buildings feel a lot denser when you're driving on highways. There are also many difference between Tokyo and Seoul highways, including layout (mainly overpasses/underground vs mainly sitting on the ground), toll (pretty expensive vs mainly free), traffic (acceptable vs bad), # of lanes, etc.
Road/grid/block layout is also completely different. Seoul do not have consistent stylings. Most districts south of Han River weren't even part of Seoul until 60s or 70s. They were basically farmland (GBD), airfield (YBD), or an island (Jamsil), up until early 70s. When they started to develop this area, they adopted grids of arterial roads (8-12 lanes). Each side of the squarish blocks is roughly half mile, which is much bigger than typical blocks in US downtowns or any blocks in Tokyo. There are always many public roads inside of those blocks (unless the entire block is occupied by one apartment complex), but those roads are not really meant for car traffic (especially thru-traffic). However, in the older parts of Seoul, there are not much of grids, nor similarly wide arterial roads, nor similarly big blocks. Tokyo, on the other hand, is generally more similar to some US cities on non-grid or half-grid plan (with exception of sizes, because roads and pretty much everything are much smaller), or more organized version of older parts of Seoul.
Also, there is pretty big difference in green space. In Tokyo, green spaces are usually artificially created small parks here and there. Big parks/forests/mountains are rare. Seoul do not have much parks except for a handful of big parks near Han River, but they have many undeveloped/preserved mountains. The city itself is surrounded by mountains, and there are many small mountains inside of Seoul. Because of those mountains, Seoul is in the lead when you look at statistics. But in reality, you'll have better park accessibility in Tokyo, unless you live right next to Han River.
Because of those mountains which surround Seoul (and some laws which prevent the development in those mountainous areas), sprawl patterns are drastically different. Tokyo sprawled just like American cities. The only difference is that it sprawled following the subway lines, not highways, because that's how you commute. Seoul do not sprawl like that. It's more like Seoul proper, and then no mans land (mountains), and then satellite cities. The differences in housing types also played some roles. Single family detached house is already pretty common in Tokyo 23 wards, and it's even more common outside of 23 wards. That's not the case in Seoul. Although there are a lot more detached houses outside of Seoul (something like 20% rather than 2%), but they're still not even close to the majority. High rise apartment complexes are the majority, followed by low rise apartments. Also, high rate of detached houses usually indicates
slum-like neighborhoods in Korea (built long ago, no parking, narrow roads, etc, resulting in compact footprint), not
suburban neighborhoods which could eat up huge amount of land (true suburban neighborhoods are very scarce). So there is no endless waves of detached houses.
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