Japan’s urban land usage is terrible and there is no reason to replicate it in most places. The economics of building up in Japan are different to anywhere is that is not as earthquake prone (which is basically everywhere). That’s why neighborhoods in central Tokyo still have detached single family dwellings in large numbers which is not something that you see in most other large Asian cities that don’t have to worry about natural disasters. Anyone who talks about replicating Japanese urbanism anywhere outside the Ring of Fire should be forced to commit sudoku.
Tokyo only works because a huge proportion of the working and middle class are pushed out to satellite cities like Chiba, Saitama, and Kawasaki. Yes, there is public transport that gets them to Tokyo for their jobs, but unless you’re lucky enough to have flexible starting times you are crushed into cattle car conditions for upwards of an hour each way. Not to mention that as soon as you get outside the Yamanote circle line, it becomes basically impossible to take a train in any direction except towards Tokyo or away from Tokyo. Want to get from Nakano to Nerima by train? Fuck you, pay an entirely separate company for bus fare, potentially doubling the cost of your trip.
The narrow walkable roads are great until you notice that there’s no space for a physically separated cycle lane so bikes are forced to either weave in and out of illegally parked traffic or pedestrians on the footpath. Oh yeah but the drivers will know they don’t own the road right? My comrade in Christ, have you ever met a driver? There is no shortage of assholes who will threaten to run you down because you’re in their way except now where’s no footpath that physically stops them from doing so. Speaking of lack of physical separation, lots of houses and apartments have front doors that open right into the path of traffic because of how narrow the roads are. You don’t have to be a genius city planner to see how that shit is incredibly dangerous even for adults, never mind children and animals.
Speaking of illegally parked cars, many ostensibly two lane roads are only physically wide enough for one vehicle which sounds great because fuck cars but people end up haphazardly parking all over the place with their blinkers on to run errands, make deliveries, and pick people up or drop people off. Couple that with extremely expensive paid parking and insufficient parking enforcement and you get instances of emergency vehicles being literally unable to proceed because of parked cars and narrow roads.
The awesome flexible town planning and zoning rules that these videos always fellate produce copy paste concrete jungles with little thought given to greenery or parks or other public spaces. This is now becoming especially problematic because Tokyo is just a huge urban heat island with insufficient trees and green spaces, which is not working out well for a city where there’s a lot of older people who are expected to walk everywhere in 40 degree summer. Again, circling back to those cool narrow streets - they tend not to be very cool temperature wise because there’s physically nowhere to plant trees so there’s no fucking shade and everything is just houses and buildings which aren’t good shade.
This is just KKKraker weeaboo slop starting from a conclusion of “WOW JAPAN SO COOL HONORARY ARYANS GOOD TRANSPORT” and then working backwards to support that conclusion with a bunch of bullshit.
If you want to see my version of Japan hate, just wait until I make that post about how atrocious Japanese buses are. We’re talking hourly or worse service on many routes, even in major urban areas.
One of the other side effects of the tiny roads the video loves so much is that there’s entire areas that just don’t have bus service because busses physically can’t fit.
good post but havw you considered J A P A N A E S T H E T I C
I have considered that, it’s one of the reasons I lived there for so long. When you actually have to deal with Japanese urbanism every day the dick riding Westoid commentariat becomes more and more annoying.
I’m pretty sure the first two phrases they teach in Japanese 101 for Business are よろしくお願いします and クソ満員電車
申し訳ありませんですが、人身事故のせで遅れました。
While I disagree with many of your points I will concede that there are shockingly few trees on Japanese streets. Little backstreets should be filled with trees. I get that roots can damage the street, but surely there is a way for lovely, shady trees to be on every backstreet.
Trees are messy. If you plant one someone has to take care of it and sweep under it lest there be gasp fallen leaves on the ground. Trees also attract birds and Japanese boomers will literally call up the city office and complain about birds chirping.
Therefore, better to just have more pavement.
Solution is concrete tree statues, obviously.
I think that might be kind of impossible in Japan, I don’t think there’s enough sunlight that actually reaches into the streets through the buildings to support tree life
Nah it’s not that bad. Even the major urban canyons tend to have arterial roads and avenues that allow for greenery. It’s when you get to the narrow roads that the video dick rides where it starts to get darker because of two and three story houses so close to each other. But even then lots of people have house plants and small bushes, just not trees.
But where will the above ground utility poles go?
I’m open to being wrong! More trees everywhere would be preferable
The narrow streets aspect has been talked about before by a libertarian crank I have to give credit to for getting me into urbanism
Great video! I second his recommendation of Life Where I’m From’s video about Japanese zoning.
I’d also recommend a book I checked out from the library recently, Emergent Tokyo, which goes into a lot of the same subjects and has some great insights.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
