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Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

bbc.com

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Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#81

Post by hagbard_c »

Earlier on I posted the following comment which for some inexplicable reason got flagged:

The BBC forgot - or, as is more likely, refused to mention - rule #0: ensure a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour.

To the person or persons who flagged this comment, please explain. What is it that got you to flag this comment? If there is one thing Japan is known for it is for having a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour. Is the truth so hard to accept that it needs flagging? Those Japanese cities without Japanese culture would look totally different and in some ways not nearly as 'liveable', in other ways probably more interesting.

If you don't agree with a comment there is the reply link to let us know. This is a discussion site after all. If you just don't like a comment without being able to put into words why just give it some more thought, the words may come.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#82

Post by pibaker »

giwook wrote: post #33
danudey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or come to downtown Vancouver. I live in a small apartment, but within four blocks I have a community centre with gym, a pharmacy, a post office, a grocery store, a small bakery, the best liquor store in the city, three banks, a hot pot restaurant, a physiotherapist/massage therapist office, a vet, a dispensary, multiple hairdressers, an optometrist, several restaurants, two places to get gelato, a public plaza with…

One key difference that jumps out at me between various cities in Japan and Vancouver is that the COL seems significantly better in Japan. When I visited Vancouver I couldn't afford to stay in or even near the city, I had to find a place about 20 minutes away and even then it was pricey. Whereas in Japan I had no problem finding affordable stays in city centers in all of the major cities I visited, including Tokyo. I…

Affordable to you or affordable to the locals? The yen has devalued a lot in the past decade or so, giving foreigners a lot more spending power in Japan and causing the current tourism boom and backlash.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#83

Post by dismalaf »

testing22321 wrote: post #80
gilthelander wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Canada basically IS the US with metric and the people talk funny. I’ve spent considerable time in both - seen something around 46 states and all but two provinces and territories. I’m actually an immigrant from a different OECD county. On the surface, the US and Canada are fairly similar. Once you live and go to work everyday, the differences are stark. Every single person in Canada has healthcare. Medical bankrupt…

> Every single person in Canada has healthcare

If you're ok waiting 6-18 months for basically everything that's not life threatening.

The reality is that people either suffer in our system or go abroad for medical treatment.

> I’d been living and working in the US for 6 months, and came to Canada for the first time. After 30 minutes I felt more at home and happier than I did at any time during six months in the US.

Of course, you were on vacation. Wait until you find out that the median Canadian income is ~$33k USD and s typical apartment is ~$2500 per month for 2 bedrooms.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=111002...

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#84

Post by janalsncm »

thereisnospork wrote: post #69
wat10000 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conform to the expected behavior of the situation" is incredibly complicated. What is the situation? How do you determine what the expected behavior is? What exactly does conforming consist of? It takes humans years to learn how to do this. Entire books are written on the subject. A major medical disorder affecting millions of people includes a persistent difficulty doing this specific thing. Even normal people have…

"Stand to the right on an escalator" "Put trash in a trashcan and not on the ground" That wasn't complicated. And took 30seconds. Are there a lot of rules? Of course. Is knowing them all in advance possible? Of course not. Don't confuse that with 'complicated'. Fine people who litter. Have an ai voice chide people who stand on the wrong side of an escalator. Both simple.

Fwiw escalator standing rules depend on where you are in Japan.

https://myjrpass.com/ja/blog/Escalator_Rules_Japan

> However, each region in Japan has a different side to stand. In Tokyo, people stand on the left side and in Osaka, people stand on the right side.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#86

Post by drekipus »

giwook wrote: post #40
danudey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or come to downtown Vancouver. I live in a small apartment, but within four blocks I have a community centre with gym, a pharmacy, a post office, a grocery store, a small bakery, the best liquor store in the city, three banks, a hot pot restaurant, a physiotherapist/massage therapist office, a vet, a dispensary, multiple hairdressers, an optometrist, several restaurants, two places to get gelato, a public plaza with…

Plenty of American cities have this. I have three big grocery stores within a 2-7 minute walk. Myriad restaurants, bakeries, and cafes literally on the same block and within walking distance of me. Vancouver is great, just wanted to call out the bias and massive overgeneralization in your statement.

> Plenty of American cities have this. I have three big grocery stores...

Yeah this is precisely the exact opposite of what the article is talking about.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#87

Post by enaaem »

f13f1f1f1 wrote: post #8

Rule 1: be filled with Japanese people Cities and any polity or group of people cannot be created by some abstract rules or enforced. You need it to be composed of individuals who are disposed to act harmoniously with each other and have a culture (which is basically a bunch of jigging to aid harmonious interactions, you cannot create top down the manners you don't want people to violate). Everyone acting in their ow…

Singapore is a multi-culturial society and it is also known to be very safe and clean like Japan. You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#88

Post by timr »

mikhael wrote: post #72
timr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if there's a way in, and a way out, i consider that a win. will i lose maybe 5 minutes because the accessible entrance is not in the most convenient location that day? perhaps. but it's just that - an inconvenience. I get that, and I also don't think they need to plop an elevator at every staircase, but there are so many stations where they could have ramps or some other minor improvement to make more exits accessi…

(just curious if you're willing to share which station that is. i'm sincerely interested in checking it out.)

Not publicly. Send me an email.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#89

Post by timr »

mikhael wrote: post #70
timr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think i've ever seen a station with only one elevator, it's always at least one platform-to-ticket-gate, and one ticket-gate-to-ground (maybe that's what you meant). Well, first, I'm talking not just about the subway, but all rail lines, which is a higher bar. Setting that aside, what I meant was what you've inferred -- there's typically one elevator path that will get you out of an "accessible" station. Ye…

i can't speak for all rail lines through tokyo - the ones i've taken have been fine. quick searching suggests they're probably mostly fine. the standard for me is not "is it easy?" but "is it possible?" or maybe "is it not a huge pain in the ass?" - it's always cleared that for me. signage could often be better, i'll definitely say that. tokyo more broadly: it's improving, but yeah, it's nowhere close to 100%. obviou…

> and i didn't mean to come off as too harsh. but i imagined someone reading your comment and being deeply discouraged (as i might have been, many years younger) when in reality tokyo has possibly one of the best and most accessible subway systems in the world.

Fair point. And I should apologize for being a bit snarky in response -- I get prickly when accused of "disinformation".

I admit that I'm used to the US ADA version of things, and that colors my views. But yeah, by the standards of the rest of the world, that's probably a pretty high bar.

> (and don't get me started on NYC, which is just wheelchair-hostile.)

Oh, definitely.

Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

#90

Post by cm11 »

its_ethan wrote: post #15
cm11 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know. I, the individual, can maintain a lot of manners fairly simply if I really wanted to.

I think they are saying that it's difficult to "maintain manners" for hundreds of thousands to millions of diverse "I, the individual" 's. It's great that you don't struggle with that yourself, but your manners can be made entirely irrelevant by 1 person in a public place who has anti-social behaviors (doesn't share the same set of "required" values for that society).

You're right, it can be read as it being difficult for society to maintain manners. I agree and I should have been clearer. But I also think you may be misunderstanding what I said to fit it into your own model. There is a difference between manners and what results from them. You can maintain (what you believe to be) good manners without it improving society to your liking. This is "irrelevant" in the sense of not changing things, but it is not irrelevant to maintaining your manners. Conforming to the bad manners is the more likely culprit to the bad outcomes anyway.

Caving on manners to avoid the "struggle", or rather, caving on manners because one benefits from doing so is just a reflection of how much one values the values. This is simply saying that more often than not we can maintain them, it just might not be worth it to us.

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