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Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

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Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#281

Post by tsunamifury »

treis wrote: post #277
tsunamifury wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pretty easy to understand when you realize Americans don’t like eachother. If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric, it’s not like the cars built the cities for us. And we keep getting worse. Small towns I drive through now are full of angry people who seem to want to be left alone. It’s incredibly sad. We are a selfish and community-less people that enjoy the frontier and adventure more than qu…

>Small towns I drive through now are full of angry people who seem to want to be left alone. It’s incredibly sad. I would love to know how you determined that.

I do a lot of road-trips through rural Oregon, California and sometimes Texas. I get middle fingers, angry truck drivers actively trying to run me off the road. Someone even hit me once, for no reason. I get threatened semi often in towns where I look like I don’t belong, but trust me they do it to each-other too.

Rural life has always been hard and rough but it’s sad. Their towns are dying and they look, act and feel miserable to each-other.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#282

Post by embedder »

echelon wrote: post #269
addicted wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting all preferences aside, American suburban living is fiscally unsustainable and supported by massive borrowing. That’s one major reason American infrastructure is so bad. Towns have to balance their books, and that means they cannot afford to maintain their infrastructure until the federal government, which is not legally required to balance its books, borrows a ton of money to give away for basic infrastructur…

> American suburban living is fiscally unsustainable and supported by massive borrowing. These are city dweller opinions, and they're not going to change continued suburban and rural development. Suburbanites shouldn't have to pay for city subway and potholes. Those are city problems. Suburban and rural land is cheaper, the air is less polluted, and the low crime environments are ideal for raising families. If people…

You’ve set up a bit of a straw man argument there. The person you’re replying to isn’t saying suburbanites should pay for city potholes, they’re saying suburbanites need to be able to pay for their own (suburban) potholes, and the ugly truth is that suburban infrastructure maintenance is economically unfeasible. Suburban development has only progressed as far as it has via ponzi-like borrowing schemes that are entirely dependent on new growth.

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

We need to place more emphasis on the efficiency of transportation and infrastructure in new developments, and density is a major factor there.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#283

Post by pempem »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #265
tsunamifury wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I used to believe that for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just a “bike-city” circle jerk scapegoating Robert Moses in order to ignore our deeper problem: Americans don’t like each-other. We would have built better cities if we wanted carless communities. But we didn’t and still don’t. We want this. This is what we like. We are a sick people. And it isn’t Robert Moses and GMs fault, t…

This just historically inaccurate. Older US cities have many of the same characteristics as cities in other parts of the world. Those characteristics can vary, from small single-family homes tightly packed into a walkable neighborhood to large scale apartment dwelling with city squares and boulevards nearby. Americans used to build cities this way. Whether it was Moses or the emergence of a general dislike of each ot…

^ this is very accurate.

There are multiple studies and historical accounts documenting exactly this TsunamiFury. Car lobbies are actually clearly tied to many city planning decisions, combined with white flight and corresponding government loans to create suburban communities that essentially cut others out.

Additionally interstate commerce in a comparatively intensely large land mass like the US did create a need for additional transportation, but the sprawl has indeed been very much tied to the factors PaulDavisThe1st and others have pointed out. Its not 'not liking' each other. Its money + racism + poor representation of the populous. Like a lot of things.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#284

Post by noahtallen »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #158
bedobi wrote: post #8

Having lived in Tokyo for years, the elephant in the room is "cars". The whole city is full of pleasant mixed use neighborhoods that are more or less car-free, and centered around public transport hubs that have everything you need around them. People, including unaccompanied children, can and do safely walk and ride bikes everywhere at all hours of the day, including when grocery shopping etc. The world can learn a…

I lived in Tokyo for almost five years, and owned a car while I was there ... I don't think this is a question of the city being "designed around cars". There's a lot more "design for cars" in Tokyo than there is in, say, New York City - look at the Shuto expressway with its multiple rings of highways that run around the city and the radial routes that join them together; its elevated sections and tunnels through the…

I think it’s still related! Here’s a good video on the subject: https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k

Amsterdam is similarly regarded as excellent for biking and walking, but it’s also great for driving. This is hugely different from America, where basically every transit mode sucks (in dense areas) because dense areas are designed for cars at the local level. The solution that Amsterdam (and seemingly Tokyo) have used is to separate the two. You have roads which are excellent for high-speed cars, and local streets which are excellent for people to walk and bike. But you shouldn’t mix the two with local streets designed for high speed driving. (These are sometimes called “stroads”, and are one of the most common road designs used in North America for local access to shops.)

The reality is that if you follow the advice of walking/biking infrastructure advocates, you also get a city which is nicer and safer for driving, because cars are much more separated from the most dangerous and stressful elements of city driving!

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#285

Post by acdha »

tsunamifury wrote: post #252
ben-schaaf wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we liked living together we wouldn’t be so car centric It's entirely the other way around, car centric planning results in less community. It's much easier to be angry at the other 2t metal boxes than at your fellow human being. American cities used to be just like European cities: designed for walking, mixed use developments, small shops, public transportation everywhere. It's only after the delusion of the car…

You know I used to believe that for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just a “bike-city” circle jerk scapegoating Robert Moses in order to ignore our deeper problem: Americans don’t like each-other. We would have built better cities if we wanted carless communities. But we didn’t and still don’t. We want this. This is what we like. We are a sick people. And it isn’t Robert Moses and GMs fault, t…

> Americans don’t like each-other.

Specifically white Americans want to avoid living with brown Americans. Once segregation was no longer law, it launched a wave of destruction for public infrastructure: pools, schools, transit, even things like sidewalks all became things to oppose if they had to be shared.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#286

Post by leicapowerball »

axpy906 wrote: post #179
laurieg wrote: post #127

Many posters have already mentioned some of the great things about Japanese cities: walkable neighbourhoods, good public transport, life without cars. I agree with all of these. However, you can't get something for nothing. Even in the suburbs there are essentially no gardens (a friend of mine lives way out of town and has a 10m by 10m garden which is enormous and unusual). Houses and apartments are significantly sma…

One more drawback to mention (Having lived in Tokyo a few years) it’s worth pointing out its not exactly kid friendly. I really don’t think most big cities are tbh.

What do you mean by kid friendly? I lived in central, urban Tokyo (Minato) for several years and found raising kids was way easier than where we live now (Bay Area). There were several parks within 10m of where we lived and each neighborhood has a community center with a very nice indoor play area for rainy or cold days. I found businesses to be more children friendly than in the US. Several businesses, both large and small, in our area would have well maintained child seats and silverware for children.

The only thing I like better about where we live now is the much higher salary (even with cost of living) and the access to outdoor activities. You'd have to take a train at least an 1.5 hours away to get to larger green spaces in Tokyo. Arguably, this might be more convenient for those that don't like driving but getting several kids ready and babysitting them on a long train ride is a bit difficult.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#287

Post by voidfunc »

syki wrote: post #114
danielrpa wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the US need to have traditional cities? I grew up in a high density city overseas and I can see the appeal of both types of city. I personally prefer low density, car centric cities (obviously we need to finish solving the emissions problem from cars, but that's separate).

We Americans are a nation of people who spend the vast majority of our waking hours inside. We go from building to building via car isolated from the world and each other. It’s an enormous waste of land and resources since every building has to have its own parking. Most parking lots at stores sit empty most of the time. It’s unhealthy that we walk so little. It’s unhealthy that we interact so little with those aroun…

Seems like most Americans like it this way. You say unhealthy but that is what the market overwhelmingly wants.

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#288

Post by [deleted] »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #265
tsunamifury wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I used to believe that for many years and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just a “bike-city” circle jerk scapegoating Robert Moses in order to ignore our deeper problem: Americans don’t like each-other. We would have built better cities if we wanted carless communities. But we didn’t and still don’t. We want this. This is what we like. We are a sick people. And it isn’t Robert Moses and GMs fault, t…

This just historically inaccurate. Older US cities have many of the same characteristics as cities in other parts of the world. Those characteristics can vary, from small single-family homes tightly packed into a walkable neighborhood to large scale apartment dwelling with city squares and boulevards nearby. Americans used to build cities this way. Whether it was Moses or the emergence of a general dislike of each ot…

[deleted]

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#289

Post by [deleted] »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #198
dustintrex wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese houses are quite different from US ones. My in-laws live in a house in suburban Chiba well outside Tokyo, but it has literally no garden space and the neighborhood is so densely packed a taxi can't even pull into the little laneway it's in. Within a 100 meter radius there's a grocery, a drugstore, several restaurants and more, and everybody gets around on foot, by bicycle or by bus.

tbh a yard seems less necessary when you can walk everywhere

[deleted]

Re: Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

#290

Post by unbanned »

greggman3 wrote: post #141

I love Tokyo but I know lots of Japanese people that love suburban America. They love the space. I quick search suggests the average size house in Tokyo is 66sq meters where as in LA it's 167sq meters or nearly 2.5x larger. And that's just LA. My guess is plenty of other suburbia cities the average is even larger. I lived in Tokyo for 15 years. My last place was 54sq meters. I like there are more options in sizes tha…

Japanese people are smaller though. So relatively the size is the same.
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