4 ms·

Urban design and mental health in Tokyo

51 points by blacksmythe 9y ago

Animats 9y ago
The enthusiasm for superblocks is interesting. That's been a disaster in US city planning. It's associated with housing projects. Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, which is a huge, expensive apartment complex, gets higher rents for apartments which face the "outside" streets than for those which face the interior open space.
- pouetpouet 9y ago
  depends on what the definition of superblock is. Superblocks in american are a barrier to walking cycling. In tokyo it may be more like the initiative in Barcelona [1] where there are streets inside the superblock, but not for through vehicular traffic. It's important to have a highly connected fine grained network of streets for pedestrians and cyclists. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-rescue-barcelona-spain-plan-give-streets-back-residents https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-r...
- lucideer 9y ago
  This is a very common observation in my experience, but I strongly suspect it's misplaced. My guess is that there are other factors that cause housing projects to be "disastrous", and the correlation with superblocks is either coincidental, or - more likely - connected to institutional biases. If you look at a lot of superblocks in Nordic countries, they're extremely successful, but they also have a few not-so-great superblocks dotted here and there as well. I think there's probably examples of both to be found ("good" and "bad" superblocks) in every country, with just the ratio varying per-country. I'd be interested to see research though as the above is just anecdotal/intuition.
  - nihonde 9y ago
    My theory, having lived in New York and Japanese cities with lots of superblock developments, is that everything depends on how well the residents maintain the site.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      That's definitely a big factor but there's also a lot of others. Socioeconomics are going to influence the ability to maintain, as well as build quality, architectural considerations, &c. Local crime levels and law enforcement are going to influence residential threat models/security considerations and have positive/negative effects on residents' priorities and approaches to the maintenance of their own blocks. Provision of public amenities -vs- gated private amenities will produce different effects in different areas. QoS from building maintenance companies, the list goes on.
      - nihonde 9y ago
        My experience with these buildings in Japan is that many of the residents are either extremely low income or extremely thrifty senior citizens, or young single people away from their family unit and unable to afford more than a room for a few man yen per month--with a heavy bias toward the seniors. They have the benefit of Japan's excellent public safety network, such as local police boxes (koban) and lots of watchful eyes everywhere. There are very, very rarely going to be groups of idle men hanging around in public spaces during the day. No drug business or other illicit street activity is tolerated--it would simply stick out like a sore thumb and be handled with extreme prejudice. (Whether that's a good thing in itself is another topic for debate.) Anyway, it gives enough breathing room for the residents, many of whom are quite poor and infirm, to stay busy cleaning the grounds and keeping an eye on each other. The maintenance staff is usually one or two guys who may bring in help for landscaping or big jobs, but are usually just doing rounds and odd jobs. It is remarkable how much it operates as a self-contained unit with very meager resources and without much help from the outside. My direct experience was local (Nagoya) but it looks quite consistent in other places, at least from the outside looking in. Maybe others have a different view from places like Tokyo or Osaka.
        lucideer 9y ago
        Really great insight. Thank you for this.
  - 0x4f3759df 9y ago
    If you would like to see a housing project deteriorate there's a documentary on Amazon Prime called 'The Pruitt Igoe Myth'. tdlr; It was low income so the rents were not sustaining the maintenance costs, and the city chose not to allocate appropriate funds to that effect (some racism was in play here).
- rtpg 9y ago
  I think "proper" superblocks in Tokyo tend to suffer from similar issues as in other cities. You end up building these huge buildings and it all feels a bit claustrophobic But almost all the roads in Tokyo have the big superblock advantage: pedestrian first. While there's a bunch of big avenues, basically no smaller roads have sidewalks. Instead people just walk "on the road" and cars drive slowly. Lots of roads are basically "1.5 cars" wide too. This helps with making denser communities without needing huge appartement buildings. Loads of areas of Tokyo are "just " 2-4 story buildings. But work of small details mean you can end up being pretty dense anyways.
- woliveirajr 9y ago
  Brasilia was built considering superblocks, and as the city grew, the "all you need will be near you" concept collapsed, as people need to move to work and public transportation is far from being adequate.
robzyb 9y ago
I saw Layla (the director of UDMH) give an excellent presentation at PechaKucha Tokyo last month. I look forward to flicking through this document.
kaybe 9y ago
"People in Tokyo sleep, on average, 5 hours and half at home, (and they add to that their sleep during the commuting time in a train.)" That does not sound healthy at all. How does this work?
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Everyone arched forward and snores, it’s impressive really.
- lj3 9y ago
  I did this for a few years when I lived in San Mateo and worked in Mill Valley. It's not healthy, nor is it pleasant. I was robbed in my sleep more than once.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  Not from Japan but one on the things I miss the most now that I have a car is being able to sleep around 5 hours and catch up during commute. It's crazy how good you get at falling asleep instantly and how you get a "my stop is at the right corner, I need to wake up right now" sixth sense. Now I require more sleep and commute makes me more tired when I get to work and back home.
  - Neeek 9y ago
    I agree. I developed this habit in highschool but no one else I know seems to have picked it up, interesting to see it discussed here :) I get VERY sleepy whenever I'm on a bus now, even 7 years of car commuting later.
mercurysmessage 9y ago
That Sumida River drawing is a nice touch. When I used to work in Tokyo I'd often go to the river at lunch, it's very relaxing and I love being near water.
- mc32 9y ago
  They should add more trees. Sometimes you just need a bit of shade while you lunch or nap.
  - mercurysmessage 9y ago
    Yea more trees would be nice. The area I frequented had a nice bridge I'd use for shade haha

51 points by blacksmythe 9y ago

The enthusiasm for superblocks is interesting. That's been a disaster in US city planning. It's associated with housing projects. Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, which is a huge, expensive apartment complex, gets higher rents for apartments which face the "outside" streets than for those which face the interior open space.

pouetpouet 9y ago
depends on what the definition of superblock is. Superblocks in american are a barrier to walking cycling. In tokyo it may be more like the initiative in Barcelona [1] where there are streets inside the superblock, but not for through vehicular traffic. It's important to have a highly connected fine grained network of streets for pedestrians and cyclists. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-rescue-barcelona-spain-plan-give-streets-back-residents https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-r...
lucideer 9y ago
This is a very common observation in my experience, but I strongly suspect it's misplaced. My guess is that there are other factors that cause housing projects to be "disastrous", and the correlation with superblocks is either coincidental, or - more likely - connected to institutional biases. If you look at a lot of superblocks in Nordic countries, they're extremely successful, but they also have a few not-so-great superblocks dotted here and there as well. I think there's probably examples of both to be found ("good" and "bad" superblocks) in every country, with just the ratio varying per-country. I'd be interested to see research though as the above is just anecdotal/intuition.
- nihonde 9y ago
  My theory, having lived in New York and Japanese cities with lots of superblock developments, is that everything depends on how well the residents maintain the site.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    That's definitely a big factor but there's also a lot of others. Socioeconomics are going to influence the ability to maintain, as well as build quality, architectural considerations, &c. Local crime levels and law enforcement are going to influence residential threat models/security considerations and have positive/negative effects on residents' priorities and approaches to the maintenance of their own blocks. Provision of public amenities -vs- gated private amenities will produce different effects in different areas. QoS from building maintenance companies, the list goes on.
    - nihonde 9y ago
      My experience with these buildings in Japan is that many of the residents are either extremely low income or extremely thrifty senior citizens, or young single people away from their family unit and unable to afford more than a room for a few man yen per month--with a heavy bias toward the seniors. They have the benefit of Japan's excellent public safety network, such as local police boxes (koban) and lots of watchful eyes everywhere. There are very, very rarely going to be groups of idle men hanging around in public spaces during the day. No drug business or other illicit street activity is tolerated--it would simply stick out like a sore thumb and be handled with extreme prejudice. (Whether that's a good thing in itself is another topic for debate.) Anyway, it gives enough breathing room for the residents, many of whom are quite poor and infirm, to stay busy cleaning the grounds and keeping an eye on each other. The maintenance staff is usually one or two guys who may bring in help for landscaping or big jobs, but are usually just doing rounds and odd jobs. It is remarkable how much it operates as a self-contained unit with very meager resources and without much help from the outside. My direct experience was local (Nagoya) but it looks quite consistent in other places, at least from the outside looking in. Maybe others have a different view from places like Tokyo or Osaka.
      - lucideer 9y ago
        Really great insight. Thank you for this.
- 0x4f3759df 9y ago
  If you would like to see a housing project deteriorate there's a documentary on Amazon Prime called 'The Pruitt Igoe Myth'. tdlr; It was low income so the rents were not sustaining the maintenance costs, and the city chose not to allocate appropriate funds to that effect (some racism was in play here).
rtpg 9y ago
I think "proper" superblocks in Tokyo tend to suffer from similar issues as in other cities. You end up building these huge buildings and it all feels a bit claustrophobic But almost all the roads in Tokyo have the big superblock advantage: pedestrian first. While there's a bunch of big avenues, basically no smaller roads have sidewalks. Instead people just walk "on the road" and cars drive slowly. Lots of roads are basically "1.5 cars" wide too. This helps with making denser communities without needing huge appartement buildings. Loads of areas of Tokyo are "just " 2-4 story buildings. But work of small details mean you can end up being pretty dense anyways.
woliveirajr 9y ago
Brasilia was built considering superblocks, and as the city grew, the "all you need will be near you" concept collapsed, as people need to move to work and public transportation is far from being adequate.

robzyb 9y ago

I saw Layla (the director of UDMH) give an excellent presentation at PechaKucha Tokyo last month. I look forward to flicking through this document.

kaybe 9y ago

"People in Tokyo sleep, on average, 5 hours and half at home, (and they add to that their sleep during the commuting time in a train.)" That does not sound healthy at all. How does this work?

andy_ppp 9y ago
Everyone arched forward and snores, it’s impressive really.
lj3 9y ago
I did this for a few years when I lived in San Mateo and worked in Mill Valley. It's not healthy, nor is it pleasant. I was robbed in my sleep more than once.
Raphmedia 9y ago
Not from Japan but one on the things I miss the most now that I have a car is being able to sleep around 5 hours and catch up during commute. It's crazy how good you get at falling asleep instantly and how you get a "my stop is at the right corner, I need to wake up right now" sixth sense. Now I require more sleep and commute makes me more tired when I get to work and back home.
- Neeek 9y ago
  I agree. I developed this habit in highschool but no one else I know seems to have picked it up, interesting to see it discussed here :) I get VERY sleepy whenever I'm on a bus now, even 7 years of car commuting later.

mercurysmessage 9y ago

That Sumida River drawing is a nice touch. When I used to work in Tokyo I'd often go to the river at lunch, it's very relaxing and I love being near water.

mc32 9y ago
They should add more trees. Sometimes you just need a bit of shade while you lunch or nap.
- mercurysmessage 9y ago
  Yea more trees would be nice. The area I frequented had a nice bridge I'd use for shade haha