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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

#391

Post by pempem »

tsunamifury wrote: post #353
pempem wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ 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 f…

Sure. I’ve studied that for years and I’ve come to the conclusion that is not the root cause. At the end of the day it’s a boogie man people trot out to excuse the fact that they did that and continue to do it together. They let it happen because they wanted it.

Hm... fair enough. I have studied this for years and come to the opposite conclusion. Specifically in Geography and Urban and city planning courses.

What studies or books lead you to your conclusion?

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

#392

Post by freddie_mercury »

ciphol wrote: post #321
freddie_mercury wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and while it has many issues the general "not designed around cars" makes everything feel much more human scale which is something I miss when I visit the US. Unfortunately, cars are a status symbol and becoming increasingly prevalent, which then puts pressure on government officials to design around them. It doesn't help that government officials all have cars and clearly see car…

It's not designed around cars, but it is designed around motorbikes! Worse in many ways, although perhaps not in terms of "scale".

It isn't designed around motorbikes either. They didn't really exist in numbers 30-40 years ago which is when much of the infrastructure was put in place. Go watch some videos of Saigon in the 1980s, it is mostly bicycles with a tiny smattering of motorcycles and cars.

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

#393

Post by amrocha »

kiba wrote: post #339
bch wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Everybody has a budget. Going red is just very bad. Sustainability is the keyword here. A streetcar enhance economic activity and transportation, especially when built with proper urban planning, and may even make a profit. With the profit, the public transit agency can use the fund to improve infrastructure with hopefully less political influence in order to further it missions. You could of course make a trade off…

Just because a business turns a loss doesn't mean it isn't sustainable.

Public transport is unprofitable pretty much everywhere, because the explicit transactions don't offset costs of operation. However, the cost of not operating public transit is that you end up with awful car centric cities, more respiratory disease from increased traffic, lost efficiency from congestion, higher real estate prices in walkable areas, etc.

Additionally, there's a ton of positive externalities that are not factored in when judging profitability. Effective public transport increases foot traffic, which increases economic activity.

Even if public transit was 100% free, it would still be worth running. The market is awful at evaluating long-term large scale effects, and just disregards them as "externalities". You can't blindly trust markets to build your cities.

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

#394

Post by amrocha »

simplestats wrote: post #362
ghaff wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only somewhat agree. First of all, it depends if you have to commute to an office in some industrial park (even if it's only one or two days a week). Then there's the question of where your friends live, whether you regularly do activities outside the city, etc. Zipcar and Uber definitely make it easier not to own a car. But my observation of people I know in SF who don't own a car is that they make ample use of bo…

If you live in Japan without a car you will probably end up taking a taxi from time to time. They are lined up outside the major train stations. Overall, relying on mass-transit probably is more pleasant there, and takes less lifestyle-modifications, but you still have less freedom than owning a car. And probably take longer to get around usually. Also in plenty of Japan, by the way, you definitely need a car to get…

Public transit in Tokyo is faster than cars for the vast majority of trips. The only exception is if there's no lines connecting where you want to go, and you need to transfer a couple times. Nobody complains about "lack of freedom". When people want to go on trips, they rent a car, but even then, they usually take the train to their destination, and then rent a car there.

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

#395

Post by amrocha »

echelon wrote: post #278
freshpots wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suburban land is cheaper to buy but far more expensive to service (water, electricity, roads, etc.) and maintain. https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-02/inside-th... Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around.

> Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around. You're making value judgments about me, and they're not even factual. I happen to live in the city. I just see the value of suburbs and the incredible waste, inequality, and ineptitude of cities. Servicing suburbs isn't expensive. With wind and solar, they'll grow even cheaper. Suburbs often have their own municipal water suppl…

Cities don't "have" pollution. The pollution is brought there by suburbanites driving their cars into the city, and by car-centric city design.

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

#396

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amrocha wrote: post #395
echelon wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cities are subsidizing your excessive consumption and land use not the other way around. You're making value judgments about me, and they're not even factual. I happen to live in the city. I just see the value of suburbs and the incredible waste, inequality, and ineptitude of cities. Servicing suburbs isn't expensive. With wind and solar, they'll grow even cheaper. Suburbs often have their own municipal water suppl…

Cities don't "have" pollution. The pollution is brought there by suburbanites driving their cars into the city, and by car-centric city design.

Um, there are other sources of pollution besides cars...

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

#397

Post by amrocha »

mrkentutbabi wrote: post #320
luma wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan doesn’t go around killing opeople who don’t adhere to their society. This is a pretty recent development in Japan's history and the world hasn't forgotten. And for those those single women - why not also married women? How many of them are CEOs? The numbers don't look good for women in Japan when it comes to representation in the higher levels of business https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S088…

Because married women takes care of kids? I genuinely don’t understand this question… I guess this just serves an example how western mindset and our mindset in Asian countries are just different. Even the questions seem weird to us.

You're incredibly sexist and yet completely oblivious to it. Men like you are the reason more and more women are choosing not to get married.

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

#398

Post by tsunamifury »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #378
tsunamifury wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It is our narrative. This is one of the most honest videos I’ve ever found of our true views on life in America vs the ivory tower discussions that constantly blame GM and Robert Moses for destroying their “communities”

If that is "The American Narrative" how did Chicago or New York City ever happen? How is it that a majority of Americans live in metropolitan areas rather than further out where they can more "elbow room" ? The European conquest of north America and subsequent repopulation with immigrants (alongside a vastly diminished indigenous population) created an ethos and an opportunity for people who wanted to live away from…

So cars did this entirely on their own. Come on

You might not like cars but everyone else does. They like and want cities this way and in reality it’s people like us that are the outliers. We aren’t right. We are going against the tide.

We built cities around cars Because we like cars — because they put distance between us and our fellow American we don’t particularly like or want to tolerate.

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

#399

Post by tsunamifury »

pempem wrote: post #391
tsunamifury wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I’ve studied that for years and I’ve come to the conclusion that is not the root cause. At the end of the day it’s a boogie man people trot out to excuse the fact that they did that and continue to do it together. They let it happen because they wanted it.

Hm... fair enough. I have studied this for years and come to the opposite conclusion. Specifically in Geography and Urban and city planning courses. What studies or books lead you to your conclusion?

That people ultimately do what they want. They aren’t brainwashed. Car companies or lobbies don’t build our cities. We build them they way we want them. If we wanted them some other way we would. And most people live in suburban sprawl where they distance themselves from their fellow American — who they don’t particularly like very much.

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

#400

Post by b0ner_t0ner »

turtlebits wrote: post #259
makotobestgirl wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is honestly the thing that bothers me most about cities the US. Having grown up in Europe, I find many (I'm sure there are exceptions) US cities to be plain ugly and unlivable. The reason is obvious to me. It's that they are designed around cars. It makes such a huge difference.

Americans like their own yards and giant houses and lots of storage. Personally, I'm guilty of this (except the huge house part). I want 5 acres of land and don't want to see my neighbor.

> I want 5 acres of land and don't want to see my neighbor.

You're not making Greta angry enough, don't you want a personal Olympic-sized swimming pool as well??

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