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

economist.com

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

#381

Post by vasilipupkin »

titzer wrote: post #380
vasilipupkin wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venice, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Silverlake ?

These are vanishingly small postage stamps compared the absolutely vast sprawl that is LA. I mean seriously. Get on the 10 and head east. Let me know when you get outside the sprawl. It'll be over an hour at highway speeds. It's that big. Just the city of LA itself is 503 square miles. Santa Monica is (nominally) 8 square miles--and most of that is not what you are referring to. 3rd street promenade, a few beachfront…

I don’t live there, but I’ve driven around it. Just saying, it’s possible to get by without absolutely having to drive to get a cup of coffee or a bite to eat at least in some parts of LA. If that’s important to you, you can live in those parts. Most people actually don’t care about that at all. So, having to drive everywhere is not a problem for them.

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

#382

Post by bobthepanda »

thanatos519 wrote: post #354
bobthepanda wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also took them the better part of several decades. Most cities that have tried doing this globally have only done so very recently, and it shows, but that's okay, because it took time and patience to methodically go through more or less every Dutch road and change it.

The US can't even imagine the collective attention span required to achieve this.

You don't need outward collective action, really.

We remade our cities in favor of cars, mostly through applying changes to engineering standards. We could do it again, but the current engineering establishment doesn't want to change in many cases. (They had an easier time applying their standards, because by and large no codified standards existed before them.)

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

#383

Post by titzer »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #381
titzer wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are vanishingly small postage stamps compared the absolutely vast sprawl that is LA. I mean seriously. Get on the 10 and head east. Let me know when you get outside the sprawl. It'll be over an hour at highway speeds. It's that big. Just the city of LA itself is 503 square miles. Santa Monica is (nominally) 8 square miles--and most of that is not what you are referring to. 3rd street promenade, a few beachfront…

I don’t live there, but I’ve driven around it. Just saying, it’s possible to get by without absolutely having to drive to get a cup of coffee or a bite to eat at least in some parts of LA. If that’s important to you, you can live in those parts. Most people actually don’t care about that at all. So, having to drive everywhere is not a problem for them.

Well, I lived in LA for 4 years and walkable is one of the least applicable adjectives I can think of. I enjoyed LA but chose to leave.

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

#384

Post by tkgally »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #166
tkgally wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another Japanese city that would be quite livable without a car is Osaka. I myself have lived carless in Tokyo and Yokohama for nearly forty years without any problem. About ten years ago, I started going to Osaka several times a year and have found it similarly easy to get around on foot and public transportation. The center of Osaka is quite flat, and a lot of people there also use bicycles. If I weren't settled in…

What got you into Tokyo 40 years ago?

Basically mid-twenties wanderlust. I was planning to stay for maybe a year, supporting myself teaching English, before either going on to another country or returning to the U.S. But as soon as I got here I got a strong urge to learn the language, and I spent the next couple of years studying it intensively. I then starting doing freelance translation work and, over the next few years, gradually settled in both careerwise and in my personal life. It’s now my home, and I will stay here after I retire from my current university job next year at the age of sixty-five.

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

#385

Post by vasilipupkin »

titzer wrote: post #383
vasilipupkin wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t live there, but I’ve driven around it. Just saying, it’s possible to get by without absolutely having to drive to get a cup of coffee or a bite to eat at least in some parts of LA. If that’s important to you, you can live in those parts. Most people actually don’t care about that at all. So, having to drive everywhere is not a problem for them.

Well, I lived in LA for 4 years and walkable is one of the least applicable adjectives I can think of. I enjoyed LA but chose to leave.

How many neighborhoods in LA have a walkability score high enough where most errands can be accomplished on foot ? Quite a few, right? This list has 10 and doesn’t even mention all of them https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rent.com/blog/four-walkable...

This one is a better list https://www.walkscore.com/CA/Los_Angeles

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

#386

Post by throwaway6734 »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #369
stjohnswarts wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't agree, just because it works for tokyo and fits the culture doesn't mean it fits the culture everywhere.

Tree parking is an unneeded subsidy. The state/city should either sell or rent spots

Edit: lol Free* parking

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

#387

Post by kgin »

temp8964 wrote: post #347

This kind of thing comes back once a while. You know what? Japan has extremely low birth rate! And very high suicide rate! No. It’s not a pleasant place to live. Not any big city, for a family with 2+ kids.

You attribute the birth rate and suicide rate to the urban planning?

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

#388

Post by ben-schaaf »

bch wrote: post #325
kiba wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is inaccurate. The GM conspiracy bought streetcar companies to replace them with buses, not to eliminate public transportation. The reality is that streetcar companies were already unprofitable, killed by infrastructure cars and poor urban planning. So it was already easy for GM to buy these companies.

> The reality is that streetcar companies were already unprofitable What seems to me to be a good takedown of “public transit must be profitable or be dismantled”, or “the US post office must be profitable or be dismantled” is: How profitable is the US military?

An even better one that's directly relevant is: How profitable are roads? Public roads are exclusively unprofitable and yet they get fully subsidised.

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

#389

Post by xvilka »

thruway516 wrote: post #350
xvilka wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moscow is 24/7 city as well. Shanghai is promoting nightlife economy on the city level. Both are insanely pedestrian-friendly with one of the best public transportation infrastructure in the world.

I would like to hear more from people with experience living in Moscow. All of my impressions so far are negative: brutal winters, lawless driving, organized crime - but I think this is due to my relative ignorance. I'm genuinely interested as it's one of the top cities on my travel list

Well, winters are cold, indeed. Normally between -20C and -30C. I wouldn't call that brutal, though. With central heating it's not a big deal, in my opinion. Lawless driving? For sure not true. Organized crime? I don't think it's significantly higher than in other countries/cities. At least the last 10-20 years.

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

#390

Post by scruple »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #221
scruple wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in a US suburb. Can't even get a sandwich or buy milk or see someone without strapping myself into my fucking car. This is no way to live. Where I live has walkability by accident but the car infrastructure is so massive here, to support as many (probably more, TBH) employees who commute to our area for work as there are people who live here, that it destroys your ability to walk anywhere quickly . The stree…

I consider an area unwalkable once an intersection 5 or more lanes wide appears.

Yep, these are 5 lane crossings.
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