Quaint article you won't see in a few years, when everything with be about weather and climate. Nothing else will matter. Welcome to the apocalypse
Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
121–130 of 186 posts
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#122Earlier 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…
Vancouver is SF-level drug disorder paired with Detroit salaries, in no way is it more "livable" than a nice US suburb.
This makes me think you haven't spent time in any of these cities.
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#123Earlier 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…
It's because living in downtown Vancouver is expensive. Your rent probably comes close to covering the mortgage on one of those huge empty houses in the suburbs. That fresh baked good is probably ~$4 while the equivalent at Walmart is $1. No doubt it's a great lifestyle for well off DINKs. A lot harder to make it work for a family of 5 on 50k a year.
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Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#124Earlier 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…
Vancouver is SF-level drug disorder paired with Detroit salaries, in no way is it more "livable" than a nice US suburb.
Are you implying “nice” US suburbs don’t have drug disorders?
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there are several cities in America that are similar (Boston, Seattle, SF, SanDiego, Austin, NYC to name a few). Worth noting the US does not have a single city in the top 20 worlds most livable. Honolulu is #25, Atlanta gets #35 That tells you something.
It tells me the way they measure 'livable' is wrong. Given the choice, most people would choose to be in any one of those over where ever they are now, and the cities on 'most livable' lists.
That isn’t anywhere close to the definition of livable though
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#126> 4. Maintain manners in shared spaces Before reading the article, I guessed that it would ultimately be about human cooperation. Most discussions about human activities seem to come back to how people work together and respect shared spaces. I also think this idea extends to environmental problems. In the end, they still boil down to human cooperation. If we want to solve environmental problems, we first have to sol…
What do you call the many employees who dont go home at 5 but stay because the culture requires them to wait for the more seniors to leave first ?
Is that respect ?
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#127> "Japan is built to work for everyone," says Josh Grisdale Well - the article does not talk about the more recent hostility to gaijin in Japan. Example (article) from a year ago: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/09/21/j... You can find similar articles by other media outlets. Japan has changed - and is changing. I've also noticed this on youtube, e. g. Paolo from Tokyo suddenly praising new restr…
I feel sorry for nearly every one Paolo visits....
Its like those people have no life, it seems to be a self imposed volunteer prison.
Work, sleep, work, repeat until you die.
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#128Earlier 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…
America's greatest achievement is to last as long as it has while inverting all common sense. What is the fatal seed, I often wonder. I think this article suggests what it is. The role of the car in its fabric suggests it's hyper-individualism: a myth that the more untethered the self it, the more it will thrive. Hogwash
Probably goes back to the Roman idea of ownership + dominion; you're legally allowed to neglect your property. Compare this with some American tribes, during the same time period, where property ownership was shared and based on who were the best stewards of the land (neglect your space, and you lose standing in the community).
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ... they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city That's a horseload of bullcrap. For a start there are plenty of pickpockets in many spanish cities (not just Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Then there are people visiting houses: don't tell me it doesn't happen for I had my house visited by thieves the one time I forgot to put the alarm on (because I had to run to the ER for my daughter was between life and…
It's funny how these articles always conveniently skip over the most important point: you first have to fill your city with Japanese people .
I don't think this is as absurd as it sounds. Come to the US Midwest. "Wisconsin nice" is a stereotype, and makes us seem a little bit like hicks, but it's real. People really are polite to one another. A friend from one of the coasts observed after a long trip through rural areas by bike: "Nobody tried to kill me."
Sometimes our infrastructure and zoning are awkward, and we're too reliant on cars, but I still think there's hope.
Re: Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities
#130I have been living in the inaka for 8 years now and I always laugh at this kind of articles. They only focus on the core areas of Tokyo, Osaka, and a few big others cities, and forget to mention that outside of those areas the whole country is just endless urban sprawl of the ugliest, soulless cities you can imagine.