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Four simple rules behind Japan's most liveable cities

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

#131

Post by picofarad »

smw wrote: post #98
treis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think there really _is_ an equivalent at Walmart?

Walmart bakes fresh bread too. I get it Walmart sucks but they do have everything that a normal supermarket has, including fresh hot food, bakery, deli.

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

#132

Post by ryan_lane »

pezezin wrote: post #130

I 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.

This article is specifically about its most livable cities. Why would you expect them to discuss the cities people don't want to live in? Every country has plenty of these. The point is to show the things that make a place livable, not to show all the ways a place isn't.

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

#133

Post by ryan_lane »

pibaker wrote: post #82
giwook wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still affordable to locals. The yen has devalued, and the cost of mansions (condos) have gone up, but single family homes, small apartments, etc are still similarly priced to buy, and rent is generally stable. A major difference is that if you are OK with a tiny apartment, you can get one, and it'll be something you can pay.

You can definitely see affects of the poor economy lately (lots of pawn shops popping up, replacing expensive cafes/restaurants), but housing is still reasonable for now.

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

#134

Post by testing22321 »

dismalaf wrote: post #102
testing22321 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve now lived in Canada for 16 years. I’ve had surgeries, my wife gave birth, plenty of friends have been through the ER and doctors (we mountain bike, ski, snowboard, etc) Please, please stop making stuff up.

https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/how-many-canadians-go... https://thehub.ca/2026/01/21/over-105000-patients-left-canad... https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/article/4600-atlantic-canadi... https://www.maplemedglobal.ca/destinations/mexico https://www.benefitsandpensionsmonitor.com/news/industry-new... https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/i-had-started-saying-g... Yes, it's fine if you fall into a category where c…

Is the Canadian healthcare system perfect? Of course not.

Is it the best on the world? Clearly not.

Is there lots of room for improvement? You bet, and people like my wife are working hard at it. The Canadian system is vastly better than the us system for the vast majority of people. A system where everyone is covered and there is no concept of medical bankruptcy is obviously better out of the gate.

Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us. I mean, you wanna talk about paid leave days? Maternity leave? Crime? Inequality? Cost of healthcare v outcomes, life expectancy….?

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

#135

Post by kaladin-jasnah »

treis wrote: post #37
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…

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.

Yeah, something that bothers me is that there is such a tradeoff between affordability and walkabiliy. Most of the walkable cities/towns I would imagine being able to afford living in later in life I would imagine will no longer be affordable when I eventually make money (even on a dual income). Granted, I also don't want to live in dense areas but also want walkability.

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

#136

Post by dismalaf »

testing22321 wrote: post #134
dismalaf wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/how-many-canadians-go... https://thehub.ca/2026/01/21/over-105000-patients-left-canad... https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/article/4600-atlantic-canadi... https://www.maplemedglobal.ca/destinations/mexico https://www.benefitsandpensionsmonitor.com/news/industry-new... https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/i-had-started-saying-g... Yes, it's fine if you fall into a category where c…

Is the Canadian healthcare system perfect? Of course not. Is it the best on the world? Clearly not. Is there lots of room for improvement? You bet, and people like my wife are working hard at it. The Canadian system is vastly better than the us system for the vast majority of people. A system where everyone is covered and there is no concept of medical bankruptcy is obviously better out of the gate. Also really odd y…

> Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us.

Maybe because 34% of ALL government money in Canada goes towards healthcare. So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Maybe it's bad luck that my family has required several "elective" (note that elective doesn't mean optional) procedures in the last few years, but it's a kick in the teeth to have to pay out of pocket for healthcare in another country when so much of our taxes go towards it here and we can't opt out.

> differentiates Canada from the us.

Not going to lie, the constant US boogeyman is what keeps Canada so fucking mediocre. There's 38 "rich" countries in the world (OECD) and a ton of them are ahead of us. Why aren't we striving to be more like Switzerland, Germany, France or Norway? Why is it some binary of USA or not USA? There's a ton of countries that are safer than CANADA (nevermind the US), get more maternity/paternity days, get more vacation days, get better healthcare, better income, less inequality and a better income/cost ratio. Even the laggards in the EU have better productivity (GDP per capita) growth than Canada and even the most dangerous EU countries are safer than Canada and even the worst EU health systems are better than ours. But we're just going to ignore that because some aspect of the US is worse (also half your points the US will still win because lots companies still provide those things even if they're not required).

If every Canadian spent a year living in central or northern Europe they'd be radicalised enough to overthrow this government. Of course the reality is that Canadians who do move abroad just stay there (more Canadians live abroad than any of our peer countries) so the people that do stay here are the ones with little ambition. For better or worse I was born in Canada AND have a residence in central Europe so it's pretty easy for me to see how Canada has fallen and is being left behind by our peers. If we didn't have resources and easy access to the largest market in the world we'd be a 3rd world country (or more likely would have just never become a country).

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

#138

Post by Scrip »

shevy-java wrote: post #46

> "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…

[flagged]

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

#139

Post by j16sdiz »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #113
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…

I live in Ballard Seattle, we have most of that except the hot pot place (we are getting a Korean BBQ someday soon though). Ok, no imax (you have to take the bus to Seattle center for that). And…no subway-like mass transit until 2065 it seems. But you can get that in the states, you just need to pay for it, although the prices are something Vancouverites can surely emphasize with. And frankly, Vancouver area has some…

> The nice thing about living in China was that it was easy and cheap to live urban.

It is not that cheap when you adjust for the average hourly salary.

and imported goods are disproportionly expensive when you need them

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

#140

Post by holgerschurig »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #114
weakened_malloc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those top 20 livable lists are always pretty narrowly defined though. They’ll mention some pricey cities in Switzerland for sure, and for forget the poor slouches that have to commute into Bern from Freiburg.

> They’ll mention some pricey cities in Switzerland

The thing is that these cities aren't pricy for swiss people, with a swiss pay-cheque (err, direct bank-to-bank money transmit). It's all a result of decades long higher inflation there, that now has this extreme price difference. And with prices did their wages increase ... but not yours, visiting Switzerland. At least the country is so small you can just drive through. You don't need to go into one of their supermarket and see that all the stuff is 2x as costly as north, east, west or south of it ...

But yeah, prices play probably a huge role in this "livability" index.

Zürich (Zurich) is at place 3, while Wien (Vienna) is at 2. And I guess this has something to do with the spectacular low flat rents in Wien. They have lots of non-profit cooperatives that own the houses and take rent so that they can refurbish the houses and build new ones (1/4 of all flats in Austria is build by such cooperatives). All over Austria, 16% of all flats/houses are owned by them. But I guess in Wien it's even higher.

There are comparison sites that say that in München (Munich) you pay in average 1249 € for rent, while in Wien it is 872 €. Okay, I select the most expensive german town, so maybe this is rigged. But even with capital vs. capital Wien is cheaper.

https://stadtkosten.de/vergleich/munchen-vs-wien

https://stadtkosten.de/vergleich/berlin-vs-wien

The nicest town isn't "livable" if people can't live there because it's only for DINKS.

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