What blows me away is the transit coverage. Having the ability to connect 37 million people by transit is an amazing thing. It is an incredible achievement. The city seems similar to NYC to me, just muuuch larger (and with unique features, as you describe). I didn't buy Emergent Tokyo's hostility to new development though. There's room there for everything, that is what has worked so far.
Hey Hans! Yeah, it really is incredible—we took trains everywhere in Tokyo and Kyoto (and between!). NYC is much larger in all respects, but even off the avenues you can find serendipity. I lived on West 44th St for years. It was a mixed-use street with different building types and a lot of interesting residential and commercial configurations: basement, ground floor, and second-floor retail with apartments above. There was a parking garage with a ground-floor Indian restaurant! We used to joke that everything we needed was on the block. It was ugly, but it was a great stretch of street.
I’m not hostile to the new developments in Tokyo, but I’m less impressed by them than I used to be. I lived across the street from the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi Hills for a summer 15 years ago. I appreciated the grocery store, but I tended to walk along the perimeter of the development to get where I was going—a feature of the design, since it was all multilevel and intended to get you inside the mall. On this trip, we visited Azabudai Hills, which has some innovative architecture, but entering it required a multistory escalator ride from the street into the mall, and then inside it took forever for us to find our destination. We then went to TeamLabs Borderlands there, which plunged us into a basement mall. The only time we were at street level was walking across the [closed] plaza between the main skyscraper and the underground stuff. It all looks cool, but it didn’t make me want to spend more time there.
Having said all that, I did find the “corporate” hostility in the book overwrought. The last chapter of the book focusing on that was the weakest.
Agree. Mega developments like Ropponggi Hills mixed into the traditional Tokyo fabric are just fine. There’s room for all kinds of urbanism, that’s what makes Tokyo so great (along with the awesome transport network).
Great post, as usual. Having visited Tokyo and Niigata, Japan, what makes these cities vibrant and able to handle the quantity of the residents and visitors is the high quality and reliability of Public Transportation. The Japanese government has invested in public transportation so it is safe, reliable, resilient to earthquakes and affordable. Public Transportation across Japan runs 24 / 7 /365 every 20 minutes, so people know it is a better option than a car most of the time.
Thanks, Frank. And yes, the incredible transit is inherent in what makes that scale possible. We rode a lot of it, from metros, to commuter lines, to the Shinkansen. Worthy of its own post!
Fabulous description of wonderful Tokyo and why it is that way. It brought back my fond memories of the 9 days I spent there and Kyoto, wandering the alleyways.
Thanks Ryan. I have been to Tokyo twice, both times observing and walking (with family), and since those visits I have read the book - but your description was really insightful for me! I am also interested in the relevance and transferable / translatable lessons for New World cities and this article was great for that.
Thanks for the comment, Tim! I'm glad the piece resonated with you even after your own visits and reading. And how great for your kids to be able to experience Tokyo at a young age!
This is a big beef I have with the urbanist consensus: cities and urbanism are best characterized by speed and perpetual motion. By contrast, place is characterized by its facility of movement and cessation of movement.
Really interesting essay, Jon—thanks for sharing. In this framing, Tokyo (or at least its "villages") is one expansive place built to facilitate stopping and moving within. Of course, its arterials (like those anywhere else) are anti-places designed for moving through—and those are the worst parts of the city to experience on foot!
Oh, nice! We learned quickly to make dinner reservations using Tabelog (https://tabelog.com/en/), midday for the same evening. Lunch was easier and more casual, so we were able to walk in to places wherever we happened to find ourselves. My only specific piece of advice: take a walk through Piss Alley but don't eat there!
Really enjoyed this—the "city of doorways, not vistas" framing is great. After living in Tokyo, I came away with a very similar sense that the intimacy is mostly about zoning and land use, not some mysterious cultural essence. Where I'd push a bit further is toward what happens when demographics undermine that vibrancy—outside greater Tokyo, you can already see the fabric fraying: https://alexanderkustov.substack.com/p/why-japan-is-so-uncanny-uncannily
Excellent article. While reading Emergent Tokyo, I was surprised how small the bars and restaurants were. Sometimes 300 sq ft. That allowed local ownership, unlike larger commercial spaces American zoning codes often mandate.
What blows me away is the transit coverage. Having the ability to connect 37 million people by transit is an amazing thing. It is an incredible achievement. The city seems similar to NYC to me, just muuuch larger (and with unique features, as you describe). I didn't buy Emergent Tokyo's hostility to new development though. There's room there for everything, that is what has worked so far.
Hey Hans! Yeah, it really is incredible—we took trains everywhere in Tokyo and Kyoto (and between!). NYC is much larger in all respects, but even off the avenues you can find serendipity. I lived on West 44th St for years. It was a mixed-use street with different building types and a lot of interesting residential and commercial configurations: basement, ground floor, and second-floor retail with apartments above. There was a parking garage with a ground-floor Indian restaurant! We used to joke that everything we needed was on the block. It was ugly, but it was a great stretch of street.
I’m not hostile to the new developments in Tokyo, but I’m less impressed by them than I used to be. I lived across the street from the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi Hills for a summer 15 years ago. I appreciated the grocery store, but I tended to walk along the perimeter of the development to get where I was going—a feature of the design, since it was all multilevel and intended to get you inside the mall. On this trip, we visited Azabudai Hills, which has some innovative architecture, but entering it required a multistory escalator ride from the street into the mall, and then inside it took forever for us to find our destination. We then went to TeamLabs Borderlands there, which plunged us into a basement mall. The only time we were at street level was walking across the [closed] plaza between the main skyscraper and the underground stuff. It all looks cool, but it didn’t make me want to spend more time there.
Having said all that, I did find the “corporate” hostility in the book overwrought. The last chapter of the book focusing on that was the weakest.
Agree. Mega developments like Ropponggi Hills mixed into the traditional Tokyo fabric are just fine. There’s room for all kinds of urbanism, that’s what makes Tokyo so great (along with the awesome transport network).
Yaaasss!
Great post, as usual. Having visited Tokyo and Niigata, Japan, what makes these cities vibrant and able to handle the quantity of the residents and visitors is the high quality and reliability of Public Transportation. The Japanese government has invested in public transportation so it is safe, reliable, resilient to earthquakes and affordable. Public Transportation across Japan runs 24 / 7 /365 every 20 minutes, so people know it is a better option than a car most of the time.
Sometimes the solution is that simple.
Thanks, Frank. And yes, the incredible transit is inherent in what makes that scale possible. We rode a lot of it, from metros, to commuter lines, to the Shinkansen. Worthy of its own post!
Fabulous description of wonderful Tokyo and why it is that way. It brought back my fond memories of the 9 days I spent there and Kyoto, wandering the alleyways.
Thanks, Ray! I wish we had more time there…there’s so much more to explore!
Thanks Ryan. I have been to Tokyo twice, both times observing and walking (with family), and since those visits I have read the book - but your description was really insightful for me! I am also interested in the relevance and transferable / translatable lessons for New World cities and this article was great for that.
Thanks for the comment, Tim! I'm glad the piece resonated with you even after your own visits and reading. And how great for your kids to be able to experience Tokyo at a young age!
This is a big beef I have with the urbanist consensus: cities and urbanism are best characterized by speed and perpetual motion. By contrast, place is characterized by its facility of movement and cessation of movement.
https://bnjd.substack.com/p/the-varro-paradox
Really interesting essay, Jon—thanks for sharing. In this framing, Tokyo (or at least its "villages") is one expansive place built to facilitate stopping and moving within. Of course, its arterials (like those anywhere else) are anti-places designed for moving through—and those are the worst parts of the city to experience on foot!
I’m looking forward to seeing Tokyo again this fall; I haven’t been since the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Any restaurant tips?
Oh, nice! We learned quickly to make dinner reservations using Tabelog (https://tabelog.com/en/), midday for the same evening. Lunch was easier and more casual, so we were able to walk in to places wherever we happened to find ourselves. My only specific piece of advice: take a walk through Piss Alley but don't eat there!
Thank you, we’ll do that!
Really enjoyed this—the "city of doorways, not vistas" framing is great. After living in Tokyo, I came away with a very similar sense that the intimacy is mostly about zoning and land use, not some mysterious cultural essence. Where I'd push a bit further is toward what happens when demographics undermine that vibrancy—outside greater Tokyo, you can already see the fabric fraying: https://alexanderkustov.substack.com/p/why-japan-is-so-uncanny-uncannily
Excellent article. While reading Emergent Tokyo, I was surprised how small the bars and restaurants were. Sometimes 300 sq ft. That allowed local ownership, unlike larger commercial spaces American zoning codes often mandate.