Crate training is standard advice in the West and gets a cold reception here, usually as "why would I lock my dog in a cage".
The case for it is that a crate is a den, not a cell -- it gives an anxious dog somewhere that is only theirs, it makes toilet training much faster because a dog will not soil where it sleeps, and it means the dog travels, visits the vet, and survives being confined after surgery without panicking.
The case against is that most homes here already give the dog a corner it treats as its own, crates are expensive and hard to find in the right size, and a crate used as punishment is worse than no crate.
Has anyone here crate-trained properly? Did it help, and what size and type of crate did you find locally?