31–40 of 237 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is 1 hour by train a reasonable metric to use given the differences in trains
I'd say yes, an hour to work - while long - is pretty acceptable to most. Many caveats here such as reliability of transport etc but it does come down to time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You barely feel it during an earthquake, because the building has multiple stabilising mechanisms.
Yep, but you do feel it, because something is... off.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, because we are measuring how satisfied the people will be with their living arrangements not how fast the trains are. As a person I don't care if the train is fast or slow I care how long it takes me to get home - if it takes me 1 hour to get home with a slow train or 1 hour with a fast train it is the same to me - I live 1 hour from work.
Almost. Take reliability of trains into account too. If you are physically closer you have backup options (buses, other trains, bicycle perhaps!). Sydney has such slow transport that if you need to make connections it can be quicker to cycle the same distance. The UK people live not just in suburbs but entirely different cities to commute to London, but using trains that if they go wrong - and they will - it’ll be lo…
I think it's fair to say that Japan is the country in the world with the most reliable trains
The article makes a major mistake: it uses Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to, basically "Tokyo State", area 2,194.07 km2) for comparisons, not central Tokyo (23-ku, aka the former Tokyo City, area 619 km2). So it's basically the same as saying houses in New York are much larger than those in Paris, because you're comparing all of New York State including housing in Buffalo etc with the 20 arrondissements of central Paris. >…
These are the opposite factors of what urban US is facing.
Even Tokyo metro area population has been in decline and is forecast to decline, as NYCs continues growing.
Tokyo housing-space-per-resident being higher is probably also an artifact of lower household formation / childrearing than western cities.
That said Tokyo has different zoning which allows for smaller apartment units than NYC/SF/etc and should be applauded for that.
16.5-19.7sqm/person is the range that falls in the median (50%) for Tokyo 23 wards[1]. Only 30% of houses have the minimum recommended of 25sqm/person (so, 70% live UNDER in under 25sqm/person). If the other cities in the graph are correct, that makes Tokyo median size around half of the average of those other cities[2].
So yes, definitely Tokyo housing is tiny. I know it since I live here and talk with people; when I invite someone who is not in tech to my place they all comment on how big my 37 sqm "house" (studio/single room) is, to which I can only agree and laugh/cry inside. I'm happy because I am well for living in Tokyo, but it's still a tiny place compared to my hometown where everyone lives like kings.
[1] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/how-much-living-sp...
[2] I believe I'm using median/average correctly here, but happy for corrections! I check "at what sizes it's 50% of the # of households" and then took that measure. Sorry for mixing medians and averages, but I cannot calculate averages with the numbers I found.
The article makes a major mistake: it uses Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to, basically "Tokyo State", area 2,194.07 km2) for comparisons, not central Tokyo (23-ku, aka the former Tokyo City, area 619 km2). So it's basically the same as saying houses in New York are much larger than those in Paris, because you're comparing all of New York State including housing in Buffalo etc with the 20 arrondissements of central Paris. >…
Aren’t the backstreets of the less central ku filled with houses? I mean Setagaya, Ota, Edogawa, Adachi, Suginami, etc. I used to pick stations at random to arrive at and explore, and what I always saw was endless houses. Only the areas closer to bigger stations had manshon. I think you might be conflating Shibuya/Roppongi/Shinjuku with less central parts of the 23 special wards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because you're comparing all of New York State including housing in Buffalo etc with the 20 arrondissements of central Paris. But isn't the entire Tokyo Metropolis under an hour by mass transit? That's a far cry from Buffalo. Like, Buffalo cannot commute to NYC by anything other than private aircraft.
If you replace "Buffalo" with "an hour out of NYC" his point still stands.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is 1 hour by train a reasonable metric to use given the differences in trains
I'd say yes, an hour to work - while long - is pretty acceptable to most. Many caveats here such as reliability of transport etc but it does come down to time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes, because we are measuring how satisfied the people will be with their living arrangements not how fast the trains are. As a person I don't care if the train is fast or slow I care how long it takes me to get home - if it takes me 1 hour to get home with a slow train or 1 hour with a fast train it is the same to me - I live 1 hour from work.
Almost. Take reliability of trains into account too. If you are physically closer you have backup options (buses, other trains, bicycle perhaps!). Sydney has such slow transport that if you need to make connections it can be quicker to cycle the same distance. The UK people live not just in suburbs but entirely different cities to commute to London, but using trains that if they go wrong - and they will - it’ll be lo…
I believe that would come under the time to get home calculation. Aside from that all these other points would seem to be to Japan's benefit.