Nice. Those activities remind me when I used to visit my dad countryside (he lived in Tuscany). He's legally blind though, and we managed anyway. Not sure why the last bit would be car enabled. I was in East Hamptons a few weeks ago and the kids would play outside while we stayed in the living room/kitchen. We just had to be careful about the pool.
I traveled with my kid when he was less than 1 year old in Tokyo. What is the issue with the stroller in the subway? There are always signs of how to get where you need to go using elevators.
While Tokyo has one of the worst fertility rates, it's not like the rest of Japan is doing particularly well. Also, I was staying in Azabujuban and I was surprised by the amount of kids I saw there.
Interesting. To provide a different experience, I live in NYC with kids and I find it great here. Daycare/Kindergarten is at most 4 blocks away, grocery stores are less than a block away, it takes me 10 minutes to get to the office on the train (1/2/3). I still bike to the office often. If we need a car there is a rental less than a block away, but in practice we rent maybe once a year. Today there was an open street on Columbus Ave and it was lovely to meet co-workers with their kids and let them play there. To be fair, I wasn't born here even if I'm a citizen, so I guess I wouldn't be considered "American".