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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

#141

Post by mc3301 »

MiroslavPokorny wrote: post #126
num42 wrote: post #112

> 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 ?

I call it, "people who don't know better continuing to talk about this out-dated concept."

Yes, it still exists. It is also slowly going away, just like mandatory drinking parties.

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

#142

Post by mc3301 »

kimjune01 wrote: post #108
PaulRobinson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It needs critical mass, but then it cascades. If you read through the description, what they talk about is that the culture is built around the idea of the individual being part of something bigger, and that consideration and respect for that something bigger (other people), is core to your own identity. That's not hard for a lot of cultures, but it's almost impossible for most cultures in the Western hemisphere, and…

It only takes a small minority to ruin it for the rest of us. for example, bike theft

Fun fact: despite a national registry of bicycle serial numbers (and most people do this), the majority of Japanese people I know have had a bicycle stolen. Though it isn't unheard-of to get it back.

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

#144

Post by pezezin »

ryan_lane wrote: post #132
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.

Because these articles always talk about the good parts and never mention the bad parts which make up the vast majority of the country.

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

#145

Post by pezezin »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #106
stringsandchars wrote: post #9

> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works." Honestly, even though I…

> ... 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…

On the other hand Spanish trains don't need women only cars due to the massive amount of dirty chikan ojaji (old guys that love groping women, even underage schoolgirls). Japan is not a paradise either.

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

#146

Post by pezezin »

stringsandchars wrote: post #9

> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works." Honestly, even though I…

> The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.

This. When my Japanese girlfriend finally visited my small hometown in Spain, she was surprised how lively the city was. Not Madrid or Barcelona, but just a small 100k city. In Japan the big cities are cool, but small cities are ugly and boring.

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

#147

Post by zapzupnz »

wat10000 wrote: post #103
zapzupnz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the nearest one is a mile away, that seems really inconvenient and unnecessary I think this way of thinking, being obtuse on purpose to try to win an internet argument (without a prize, no less), is the more unnecessary thing. What point does that argumentation try to prove other than that a hypothetical version of you, as opposed to most humans who live in large cities, are an inflexible idiot? Most people…

That's my point. It's a lot more complicated than "stand to the right on an escalator." You have to learn through observation, read the atmosphere, and engage with context. There are some less obtuse issues with your universal pronouncement. There are escalators where it's too narrow to pass. There's no need nor expectation to stand to one side on these. The same goes for escalators that are so long that nobody's wal…

> That's my point. It's a lot more complicated

It's not so complicated that you assume you need to run out at this very moment to find the nearest elevator just to prove a point. That's moronic.

> There are escalators where it's too narrow to pass

So you see what everybody else is doing and do that. Presumably, if it's that narrow, everybody's just standing in the centre.

> The same goes for escalators that are so long that nobody's walking up them to accelerate their progress

The fact the staircase is so long is exactly why people would be walking up an escalator, to save the most time.

> or when nobody is around

Then it clearly doesn't matter.

> or when it's so crowded nobody's able to pass anyway

If everybody's on one side, it's not too crowded.

> it doesn't apply in places where people aren't going to be in a big hurry

Alright, that's fine for where you are familiar. It won't take long at all to notice that's not the case in Japan, there are enough elevators all around the place.

> Manners are really complicated

If you're completely unobservant yet somehow think you need to be on edge at all times, which seems contradictory, I'm sure it is.

Or if you think that they're inflexible edicts without nuance. They're manners, not morals.

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

#148

Post by zapzupnz »

jerlam wrote: post #52
gilthelander wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Probably because you need separation from the culture to fully evaluate and appreciate it. If they interviewed someone from Japan, that person would probably complain about how un-livable Japan has become. Like the subway trains are always full and they have to wait five minutes for the next one.

Meanwhile, five minutes for the next one is luxury in my neck of the woods where you're more likely to wait 30 minutes to find out the next one is cancelled.

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

#149

Post by stringsandchars »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #106
stringsandchars wrote: post #9

> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works." Honestly, even though I…

> ... 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…

> That's a horseload of bullcrap.

I agree it'd be hard for almost any other country to match that general sense of "safety" in Japanese society - we've probably all read the stories about wallets full of cash being dutifully handed in to the lost property office, and so on.

But the idea that Spanish towns are seething with pickpockets and everyone is creeping around in fear is also "bullcrap", imo.

My family is from Spain and I've spent a lot of time living and visiting there. Before she passed away, my 90+ year-old mum was out with her friends every single evening - playing cards, walking around the streets, mixing it up with families and small children strolling and playing outside long into the night.

I'm pretty amazed some robbers somehow knew your alarm was off that one time you had to rush out. That was pretty bad luck.

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

#150

Post by lwansbrough »

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.

It shouldn’t be, and certainly doesn’t have to be. Logically it should be cheaper to live in an apartment than an entire house - obviously.

Suburbs are subsidized by economic centres. And the state of affairs in North America - Vancouver included - is we’re not building housing to match demand. That’s true purely in terms of individual units but it’s also true for types of units. Like apartments that aren’t luxury units, but that can fit a family. They don’t build those anymore because city council makes it completely unprofitable for developers.

If you think that apartment living is inherently more expensive I’m sorry to tell you that you have it completely backwards.

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