I think you are close but slightly off. EU has historically better public transit and lower sprawl allowing more price points of housing while still a "reasonable" commute.
US cities are vastly larger by land size, because America is larger allowing it, added with fewer public transit options.
Look at Houston, massive sprawl and some of the cheapest housing in the country.
Or you could just upzone. The nine-county Bay Area is larger in size than the Keihanshin area containing Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe and has 12 million less people.
The transit part is key for Tokyo, everyone talks about how housing supply is robust, zoning is loose, density is high and unit sizes are small; but few talk about how having 130 rail lines with pervasive express service means that there’s an enormous amount of land within commute distance.
Set this charting tool to Density, plug in Tokyo with a number of other major world cities, you’ll see the effect in the data.
