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I live in Mt View, and I can tell you that a rallying cry of anti-development people is "Do you want Mt View to become Tokyo?" There is a large contingent of p
by marcell 8y ago
I live in Mt View, and I can tell you that a rallying cry of anti-development people is "Do you want Mt View to become Tokyo?"
There is a large contingent of people who own single family homes who want to keep things exactly as they are now. They vote in elections. The contingent of people who DO want development largely doesn't live here, so they don't vote. There is no constituency of people who will live here in 10 years when we have higher density!
- DoreenMichele 8y agoA quick search indicates Mountain View has a population of 80k and Tokyo has a population of nearly 14 million. SMH.
- marcell 8y agoFWIW, Tokyo's density is only 3x that of Mt View: Mt View: 2,300/km2 Tokyo: 6,224.66/km2
- chrisco255 8y agoHmm, I would be a bit skeptical of that figure without observing incorporated city limits and how far out they extend. Sometimes population figures include the "metro area" as well.
- hkmurakami 8y agoThis is a very good point, as there are western regions of Tokyo that after much lower density than central Tokyo. A good measure may be to look at the density in Minato-ku.
- cthalupa 8y agoMinato has a population density of 10850/km2, Shinjuku of 18500/km2, Meguro of 18900/km2, and Nakano wins out at 20,700/km2. (Nakano winning surprised me. It's pretty low-rise for Tokyo!)
- hkmurakami 8y agoWow did not expect Nakano to be so dense. Maybe more apartments compared to the other zones.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoAnd everything I've heard indicates it has remarkably afffordable housing for a big city. A quick search turned up this article, for example: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/laissez-faire-in-tokyo.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/lai... Seems like "becoming Tokyo" would be an improvement. (But I still find the comparison hyperbolic and ridiculous. It sounds like a deluded scare tactic, frankly.)
- bane 8y agoThis is an excellent video on the subject. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU Short answer: a decent house for a family can be had for about $400k in Tokyo and that's considered expensive.
- consp 8y agoMy city (Delft) has about the middle of that: 4500/km2 and both public transport and cars work fine.
- tathougies 8y agoTo be honest, as a formwr mountain view resident, mountain view also 'works fine'.
- chewz 8y agoTokyo had population of over milion in 1750, long time before cities became designed for cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Japan_before_the_Meiji_Restoration#Urban_population_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Japan_b... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tokyo#Edo_or_Tokugawa_period,_1603%E2%80%931868 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tokyo#Edo_or_Tokuga...
- DoreenMichele 8y agoLos Angeles sprawled before it became the center of gravity for the cult of the car. It was like that when people were getting around via street cars and on foot. Its sprawl is rooted in the logistics of desert development. You had to develop large tracts to cover the costs of the water infrastructure. Without water infrastructure, you weren't going to develop anything. There are myriad forces that shape given cities. I'm disinclined to accept the notion that our current car cult mentality is inevitable, irreversible, etc. and we can't do anything good anymore "like they used to do."
- sjg007 8y agoThey should allow single family homes to be turned into 3-4 unit condos. Start there.