I spent a couple of weeks walking and riding in Japan last year. Tokyo and Osaka specifically. My biggest take away was that everyone is constantly collaboratin

I spent a couple of weeks walking and riding in Japan last year. Tokyo and Osaka specifically. My biggest take away was that everyone is constantly collaborating to make it work. Bikes, people, cars, everyone is shuffling around and compromising. People and bikes seem to slip through eachother when foot traffic is light, with bikes or people giving way depending on what's easier for both. The gutters are often flush with the road, so if there was a bigger group of people a bicycle could just ride off the footpath and back on again to get around them. Half of the time there is no delineation between footpath and road, so cars drive very slowly and infrequently and everyone shuffles around subtly to make it work. In western cities I've noticed people are instead antagonistic, everyone is actively looking for something to be angry about. If they could help someone by moving a little bit, they won't, because it's their lane not yours. If you move around stopped traffic to get to a safer spot on your bike, you'll get yelled at, sometimes the argument is that it's "Unfair", like children arguing over who gets the front seat. I feel like it's the car-centric infrastructure that leads people to think the city is for cars. You don't see this attitude in foot traffic only areas like foot-malls and public transport, where people are seem more likely to help eachother, and you could liken parts of Osaka and Japan to a city-wide foot mall with some allowances for cars. I also visited Sapporo and whilst there were still lots of bikes it was clear it was a more car focused city, and you could feel how much more difficult it was to move around the city because of it. More time waiting for cars to do their thing before you could do yours, instead of the other way around. So, I'm happy to put the blame squarely on the automobile.