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Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

economist.com

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Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#61

Post by Mountain_Skies »

largepeepee wrote: post #57
throwaway-9000 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is also one of the least diverse developed countries with well over 90% of inhabitants being Yamato Japanese. It is unsurprising that it would be safe, clean, and functional.

It's not a race thing, it's a trust and culture thing. There are diverse countries that have similar levels of safety like Singapore. If your government sucks, laws are poorly enforced or even maliciously enforced - there is low trust among the people, no respect for public spaces and no one follows the social norms.

Singapore's achieves "harmony" in their diverse city-state through severe authoritarian control. There's harmony because the state dictates their vison of harmony which all must abide by.

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#62

Post by throwawaylinux »

throwaway-9000 wrote: post #53
BMc2020 wrote: post #20

Tokyo today is unusually liveable— safe , clean, functional and vibrant—for a megacity of its size: 37m in its greater metropolitan area, including 14m people in the central wards. Safe streets are the key.

Japan is also one of the least diverse developed countries with well over 90% of inhabitants being Yamato Japanese. It is unsurprising that it would be safe, clean, and functional.

Why is that unsurprising? The implication being that racial diversity makes dysfunction, uncleanliness, and danger more likely (less surprising).

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#63

Post by [deleted] »

largepeepee wrote: post #57
throwaway-9000 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is also one of the least diverse developed countries with well over 90% of inhabitants being Yamato Japanese. It is unsurprising that it would be safe, clean, and functional.

It's not a race thing, it's a trust and culture thing. There are diverse countries that have similar levels of safety like Singapore. If your government sucks, laws are poorly enforced or even maliciously enforced - there is low trust among the people, no respect for public spaces and no one follows the social norms.

[deleted]

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#64

Post by dang »

soperj wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Please don't cross into personal attack. I can tell from experience that Joe is a real person and simply trying to be helpful.

Note this, also, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

Lots of past explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33747701.

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#65

Post by throwawaylinux »

blue039 wrote: post #24
BMc2020 wrote: post #20

Tokyo today is unusually liveable— safe , clean, functional and vibrant—for a megacity of its size: 37m in its greater metropolitan area, including 14m people in the central wards. Safe streets are the key.

They're safe because their police make the US police look human. The amount of ways you can accidentally end up in prison with some extreme sentences is uncountable. I'd recommend watching any of the traveling channels to see their warnings on it for foreigners. Punishments for something even as simple as public intoxication can be comparatively severe when juxtaposed with, for example, the US where you might spend t…

Do you have any evidence showing that "tough on crime" laws and policing result in safer cities? The standard liberal dogma at least says that they don't.

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#66

Post by mradek »

Yeah but then you need something that people seem to get upset over.

Culture.

And that doesn’t mean getting stoned or acting weird or being narcissistic af, but having some basic moral and virtuous behavior.

You see old people come out and start cleaning the stairs after a rain. I saw it first hand and thought wow this would never happen in the US. You see people get in line and let the people onboard the train out before going in. Not gonna happen in the US. You can drink alcohol outside but in the US people would just be drunks everywhere and trash the place. And they trash the place without drinking.

So no.

You can’t replicate that sort of dynamic without people acting a certain way. Basic decency would be a good start.

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#67

Post by 41tor »

diob wrote: post #28
blue039 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're safe because their police make the US police look human. The amount of ways you can accidentally end up in prison with some extreme sentences is uncountable. I'd recommend watching any of the traveling channels to see their warnings on it for foreigners. Punishments for something even as simple as public intoxication can be comparatively severe when juxtaposed with, for example, the US where you might spend t…

I have a feeling you've never actually been there. They do have an issue with forced confessions, but you're much more likely to be arrested or worse (shot) in the USA for no reason. But beyond that, this is an over simplification of something that stems from multiple things, not some singular root reason. And if you want data, look no further than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... for w…

> I have a feeling you've never actually been there.

I've been Japan, and was lucky to visit as a civilian, rather than in a business or military context. I kept my phone off and used cash for the duration of my time away from my conference and had many informal conversations with Japanese citizens, who were overwhelmingly kind to me as I mourned the death of one of the last people on the planet who gave a damn about me.

Much of what parent said is accurate -- but paired with the fact you will almost never be subjected to their justice system as a white person.

To paint a picture, at the time I cruised on in from Haneda or whatever, the Deftones had recent released "Koi No Yokan", NK was once again threatening to do something nuclear, and I ended up racking a reputation as possibly being the next Ted Kazinski when I used a WISYWYG nuclear yield calculator[1] to show some folks who I shared office space with that based on the projected yield, they might take out the base, but folks at the Bankoku Shinryokan north of the island would just need to take some iodine pills and hope folks glass the North with conventional weapons.

And then, upon arrival, I apparently committed a minor diplomatic faux paux by drunkenly wandering into the neighboring karaoke booth, bumming a cigarette, and loudly declaring that I'd want the base closed too if the Marines kept raping folks in my hometown and crashing their helicopters into apartment buildings, both of which apparently had been a persistent issue for my new friends.

(They were initially a bit hostile because they thought I was a Marine ditching curfew because I was massive bald guy dressed all in black, but I think I may have gone too far in the other direction explaining in explicit detail why they should believe me that I wasn't in the CIA.... hehehehehe.)

Anyways, the times of Shinzo Abe, much like the man himself, are never coming back[3]. Incarceration just traumatizes folks and renders them more likely to act out upon release.

It is time to stop excusing bad behavior and join the younger generation of hackers and phreaks in a shared reality, and acknowledge hard truths like "Japan is so racist, they'd rather invent robots to take care of their elders than relax immigration rules" rather than make hand wavey statements like "They do have an issue with forced confessions" that excuse fascist behavior.

It is unacceptable to coerce a confession. Full stop.

(Sorry to be harsh, but there's nothing I love more than to be the living embodiment of a flavor of potato chip -- specifically, the "Cool American".)

[1] Get it? FC? hehe https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.sfgate.com/news/ar... [2] https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/ [3] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110453574/shinzo-abe-assassi...

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#68

Post by balsam »

tkgally wrote: post #58

The linked article focuses on the physical features of Tokyo. For me, even more attractive is the economic dynamism that they enable. I moved to Tokyo in 1983 and have lived there and in nearby Yokohama ever since. Until 2005, I worked as a freelancer—mostly translation, but also advertising copywriting and other related occupations. I did my work at home, but I was often out and about in Tokyo to visit clients, atte…

Seems similar to Jane Jacob’s vision for Greenwich Village(at least, haha). Anyone knows if parts of NYC (besides academia —-grant-drenched NYU, Columbia,&c) had that organic dynamism, at certain points in time, maybe?

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#69

Post by dmix »

tkgally wrote: post #58

The linked article focuses on the physical features of Tokyo. For me, even more attractive is the economic dynamism that they enable. I moved to Tokyo in 1983 and have lived there and in nearby Yokohama ever since. Until 2005, I worked as a freelancer—mostly translation, but also advertising copywriting and other related occupations. I did my work at home, but I was often out and about in Tokyo to visit clients, atte…

Like Hemingway in post-WW1 Paris or Hunter S Thompson et al in 1960s Haight Ashbury, one part of it is the city/neighbourhoods, one part culture, and the biggest thing is the people who create the culture and local businesses that make the neighbourhoods interesting.

If you hang out with interesting people (or in modern times share their information networks) then you'll find these cultural hot spots.

It's worth it for major cities to invest in fostering this sort of thing but often it happens naturally as a side effect of circumstance (post war Paris was cheap and booming with fun bars/cafes and plenty of artists, SF/Berkley was in the center of the free-love movement, Tokyo was in the Japanese capitalist tech+cultural boom/etc).

That being said, almost every major city has interesting people, you just have to find them. Some cities have much more than others. Some aren't even cities but unique towns/small communities. And some cities are riddled with poor planning or active policies that are anti-fun/creative/risk taking and scare away interesting people.

Re: Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

#70

Post by largepeepee »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #61
largepeepee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a race thing, it's a trust and culture thing. There are diverse countries that have similar levels of safety like Singapore. If your government sucks, laws are poorly enforced or even maliciously enforced - there is low trust among the people, no respect for public spaces and no one follows the social norms.

Singapore's achieves "harmony" in their diverse city-state through severe authoritarian control. There's harmony because the state dictates their vison of harmony which all must abide by.

Maybe at first. Singapore had to make lots of tough decisions early on, and they fixed it early. Problems which still plague their neighbors to this day.

I say today, the base economic situation of the people and the disparity of wealth is a bigger factor to what makes a country -overall safe or unsafe, which is what the thread is about and what I was replying to.

Safety first.

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