At the same time you'd never know that just by being in Tokyo for a while. Take public transportation: lines might change color and operator, but you use the sa

At the same time you'd never know that just by being in Tokyo for a while. Take public transportation: lines might change color and operator, but you use the same trains and cards to go from ward to ward, and coverage is pretty homogenous from one end to the other. That alone makes it feel like one cohesive city. Compare it to Lisbon (where I live): some five or six different systems to serve less than 2 million people. Disheveled, impossible to coordinate. Dense coverage in the city centre and sparse where people actually live, so masses of cars go into the centre every day. Gridlock and pollution everywhere. And the systems we have are considered good! I'll gladly join the chorus calling Tokyo the future. Can't come soon enough.