19 ms·

Why Tokyo Works

245 points by jseliger 5y ago

blunte 5y ago
So many commenters relating widely varying experiences and then arguing about it… As Tokyo is massive in land area and population, and as visitors (us) are all unique, each expertise and feeling about “the people in Tokyo” is likely to be different. It makes no sense to argue about different experiences.
tuberelay 5y ago
japan is a deeply racist xenophobic ethnostate with negligible immigration. even if this makes it a great place to live, it is deeply problematic, and should be remedied by throwing open the borders to indiscriminately allow in those from failed states
Amorymeltzer 5y ago
Regarding the quote: >"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation," says Colombian politician Gustavo Petro. Jason Kottke goes through it[0], but it seems the real source is Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who translated it as: >An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. 0: https://kottke.org/21/11/where-the-rich-use-public-transportation https://kottke.org/21/11/where-the-rich-use-public-transport...
raziel414 5y ago
I'm an American living in Tokyo, and it easily has the best quality of life out any city I've lived in. - The public transit is literally the best I've ever seen, both in America or Europe. The main train line in Tokyo (the Yamanote line) stops at my local station ever 2-3 minutes during peak hours, and around every 5-7 minutes during the off hours. - The streets are clean, safe, and well maintained. Unlike cities I've seen in America and Europe, garbage doesn't pile up in the streets. - Service workers, partially in the government, have been friendly and helpful. Even when I didn't speak the language well, I've never had trouble at the government office getting something done.
- nec4b 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ I wouldn't consider that as the best public transit ever.
- junon 5y ago
  I've moved myself to Germany and enjoy it here but I also love the idea of Japan, perhaps sometime in the future. I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?
  - tasogare 5y ago
    It's not hard to get a visa if you get a job or for study. The thing is, it's hard to get those while being outside the country.
    - presentation 5y ago
      Study is pretty easy (assuming the borders open) - anyone can do that tomorrow by joining a Japanese language school. Of course, you have to… actually study and do classes, so it’s not a free pass. Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office. There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.
      - johnwalkr 5y ago
        A few cities have startup visas now, which give you a year or two to meet the capital requirements.
  - raziel414 5y ago
    I transferred to Tokyo though my employer, so they handled the visa.
  - 5y ago
ArtWomb 5y ago
Perhaps all exist in a perpetual state of: "moving to Tokyo"
lostlogin 5y ago
That whole site is worth a look - there are some great articles.
superflit2 5y ago
Why no one talks about high IQ and very homogeneous society? Having a coehesive culture, high IQ makes a country goals easier to attain.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  High IQ?
  - tasogare 5y ago
    East-Asians have an average IQ of 105/106 vs 100 for Europeans.
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      Culture is probably more relevant than average IQ in terms of factors for a working city.
  - superflit2 5y ago
    Yes https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-i... Now think about places and cities with good quality of life… And check ranking
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      This source is attributed to a self-identified eugenicist. I think we can do better on here.
  - kjs3 5y ago
    Considering the well documented biases inherent in IQ tests, he means "no brown people".
    - Zababa 5y ago
      What are those "well documented biases inherent in IQ tests" and how do they affect "brown people"?
kory 5y ago
“Life where I’m from” has a great video on why japan’s zoning helped it become so livable. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk
ur-whale 5y ago
One aspect of Tokyo that is really nice is that many areas of the city are really organized like small villages. When you live in one of those, the 'big city' feeling that you might experience, say in one of the European capitals or in N/Y is completely gone, and it feels really good.
- csomar 5y ago
  I wonder if the fact that it was not the historical capital of Japan has something to do with it. European and American cities (like London/Paris/NY) started from a center and moved outward by outside pressure for growth. Tokyo seems like a bunch of mini-cities around the bay; and then suddenly it became a capital city.
  - rablackburn 5y ago
    It did start with a center. What is currently the imperial palace was originally Edo castle that Tokugawa built when he decided to move the capital there. But it was a castle city like any other once it was built. But as people moved there and the daimyō’s money flowed in, it began growing outwards engulfing the surrounding towns and villages. The exact type of growth you ascribe to London and Paris.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      And, while I'm less familiar with the historical growth of London and Paris, cities like New York and Boston definitely merged together previously separate communities. (And, in the case of Boston, at least two depending upon how you count are still separate cities but part of a single metropolis.)
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    I don’t think you’re very familiar with how NY was formed.
wisty 5y ago
It talks a lot about the lack of zoning, which (combined with lots of low-rise) leads to convenience stores on every corner. This makes living a lot easier (you don't need to drive to get basic groceries), reduces crime (eyes on the street discourage crime) and creates a local social network (people from the street will meet there). The downside is that Japan's lack of planning makes it kind of ugly and boring. I love the utilitarian look, and a functional city is one that can have other priorities, but the physical city fabric is treated mostly as a disposable commodity.
- glitchcrab 5y ago
  I think the whole idea of having to drive to get groceries is a fairly uniquely American thing. Here in the UK in a medium sized town I have multiple places to buy food within walking distance, from a corner shop (small, has convenience items only), up to a full sized supermarket.
- chrischen 5y ago
  I actually like the organic layout of the streets. Maybe sucks for driving, but it seems to be conducive for walking because the paths radiate out of transit hubs. For a grid layout it would force people walking to take suboptimal zig-zag paths. One anecdote about the grocery stores and organic planing versus central planning: In Japan the grocery stores are often placed closer to stations and transit stops or often in the station itself, so it covers people during their commute walking back home. In San Francisco I have no idea what the logic behind the placement of grocery stores is. I bet it has something to do around the ownership of cars because they are not placed in very logical positions and all include giant parking lots despite being in the middle of the city. So this very feature resists any motion towards usage of public transit because they are never designed with transit in mind. For example my route in SF to the grocery store would be a 25 minute walk from the BART station because I have to go past my house to the middle of nowhere, and then walk 15 minutes back. To add insult to injury there is no parking for my apartment so it's like the grocery stores were designed for people who driving in from outside the city for some reason.
  - SllX 5y ago
0x77x66 5y ago
Tokyo is nice but the commute no shangri la. Trips longer than 10km are usually a hour because of so many train stops. Average commute to work is ~50min in a crowded train standing up. Meanwhile on my social feed my Japanese friends will admire the large living spaces in the US. I think most people are just convinced it is always better somewhere else.
- presentation 5y ago
  That said at least it was feasible for me to live in a clean, $650/mo apartment of my own, in a great neighborhood, <15 minutes from Shinjuku/25 to Tokyo. The concept of an equivalent place in a place like NYC is laughable.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    I saw a video on YouTube showcasing $200-$250 rent rooms in the Tokyo area, some of them not that far out in terms of commute from the center. That is definitely something that doesn’t exist in the states, our housing codes would allow for it (small 2.5 tatami in area, they had no heat, shared toilets, no shower/bathing in the building).
    - CryptoPunk 5y ago
      A lot of things aren't available in North America because of the misguided belief that prohibiting low-quality market options leads those options being substituted one-for-one with higher quality options. This applies to micro-suites, prohibited by minimum floor size ordinances, low-wage work, prohibited by minimum wage mandates, etc. What actually happens is that more people are excluded from that market, e.g. people not being able to afford to live in SF, that - if microsuites were legal - would be able to. This comes down to not trusting individuals, particularly those in lower skill/income brackets, and their own choices.
- rayiner 5y ago
  > Meanwhile on my social feed my Japanese friends will admire the large living spaces in the US. I think most people are just convinced it is always better somewhere else. I think it’s about different people having different preferences. Most folks in Dallas (average commute under 30 minutes) aren’t wishing they were crammed into subway car in Tokyo. Likewise, people who like the urban lifestyle in Tokyo probably aren’t wishing they were stuck in freeway traffic in Dallas.
rablackburn 5y ago
Despite the title, people who have never lived in Japan probably still don’t have a great idea of how it runs after reading the article. So here’s a quick rundown of how the decentralisation mentioned in the article is structured: Japan is split into 47 todōfuken (都道府県), their closest analog to a US “state”. You’ll hear these called “Prefectures”, but just like the US has states (Washington) and territories (Washington DC), Japan only has 43 prefectures, the rest are technically different types of district. Tokyo is (the only) “metropolis” region directly under the national government. Across Japan every local district is split up into shichōson (市町村), cities, towns, and villages. “Central” Tokyo is a special area where that standard shichōson system doesn’t apply, except really it does, we just call things “wards” instead. Every local district, whether city, town, village, or ward, is essentially the face of government in that community. They provide public services like sanitation, education, and community engagement events. When it’s time to vote, you will go to your local [city|town|village|ward] office and do it there. These local offices have quite a bit of power (and are what people are talking about most of the time when they refer to the “infamous” Japanese bureaucracy. For an excellent film looking at this world, I cannot recommend Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” enough. I believe it’s in IMDbs top 10 of all time), while they are often ridiculed for being slow and stuffy, they are a very real check and balance against the prefectural and national governments. Tokyo has a city-wide government (analogous to a state government) that is politically important at a national level, an example of the more illustrious institutions run by this level is the famous Tokyo metropolitan police. As the article stated, Tokyo is rich. 10th largest gdp nation in the world if it was an independent nation, this means there’s a lot of money flowing through that city government. Depending on who you ask, this is the level that shady deals, and blatant corruption happens most. The tabloids are always busy in Tokyo. The point is, all these powers seem to be quite well-balanced, and the citizenry engaged enough to keep them in check, in other words, like a well functioning democracy. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its downsides, and I’m no fan of Tokyo after living there for four years, but it is a remarkably well-working system. I’d still rather be in Osaka, or better yet, the countryside tbh.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > So here’s a quick rundown of how the decentralisation mentioned in the article Sounds bit like: > Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.[1] The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) > […] and the citizenry engaged enough to keep them in check, in other words, like a well functioning democracy. How is the need/desire to bring forward and expose problems balanced with the Japanese cultural habit (?) of not rocking the boat? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome * https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/出る釘は打たれる https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/出る釘は打たれる
efwrgerwg 5y ago
Mainly because its citizenry and its bureaucracy have a personal attachment to their city and society being run cleanly and efficiently. This is not the case in cities like Paris or NYC, where most people see themselves as guests or even victims attempting to finesse the system by doing the least work possible. Since pretty much every public worker abides by this system there is an implicit agreement to never pursue any offenders (be they lazy or just incompetent), for everyone is used to doing the bare minimum and they like the arrangement.
- presentation 5y ago
  This is definitely part of it - people are born in Tokyo, live in Tokyo, and plan to die in Tokyo. Coupled with much stronger cultural norms around not being a pain in the neck to strangers and respecting public amenities, this changes the calculus for whether or not you’re going to trash your city.
numair 5y ago
I don’t think most foreigners are willing to do the work that it takes to “make Tokyo work,” which I have seen first-hand. First, there is the tax rate, which is super-high and the vast majority of Japanese pay without complaint. I am pretty sure there’s the highest top bracket in the world, and it’s super-progressive so you hit it quickly. Many of the foreigners who move to Japan try all sorts of tricks to avoid paying it (you get 5 years to avoid paying on foreign income not brought into the country), which just makes everyone else silently dislike them even more. I’ve literally been at a Japanese government office filing papers and overheard a Singapore resident asking a government employee if he can just transfer his business to a family member to avoid the tax rate because “it’s just too much.” Then you’ve got the sense of shared suffering that is part of Japanese culture and super important. I think a lot of people who talk about “racial cohesion” are incorrectly identifying this, which is basically a sense that “we are all here to make this work for each other, and if you’re not you’re part of an other.” It’s not a race thing, although it can appear that way to others — if you’ve grown up in Northern Europe, you’ll understand what I mean; it’s kind of like the Asian version of Jante Law. I can’t stress that shared suffering thing enough. Since the 1600s, Tokyo was destroyed on average of, like, once every 10 years, and right now everyone’s just waiting for the Great Earthquake and The Great Mount Fuji Eruption. It’s a hilarious, tragic, comical, romantic drama that plays out in the Japanese subconscious. (And since everyone will continue to pay a surtax for their shared national obligation to rebuild after the Fukushima earthquake — a tax that will continue for another decade — everyone’s also acutely aware that the bill will be massive, and they’ll be expected to contribute. Cue more foreigners departing to avoid taxes.) The tax rate, combined with the sense of obligation to each other, supports one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Which in turn is part of one of the best government administrations in the world, filled with extremely smart people who feel a real sense of obligation toward their country to do a really good job. (Don’t confuse this with the political machine... let’s just not go into that.) When you have a society where everyone is willing to “suffer” for each other, you can have a society like Tokyo. Like so many other great places, it works because people can just sort of expect others to do what’s right. And conversely, for reasons that look racist to outsiders but really aren’t, everyone also silently expects foreigners to do everything wrong. If there was an influx of people into Japan who didn’t share these values — and they’re real values, not a race thing — the whole country would quickly fall apart.
spike021 5y ago
The Youtube channel "Life where I'm from" recently put out a video (one week ago) about how Japan keeps itself clean. In some cases it's even the elderly living in the smaller neighborhoods who will "find something to do", such as tending to the public area near the street outside of their home, sweeping and washing it clean, throwing away loose trash (cans, bottles, etc.).
- greggman3 5y ago
  This! I don't know how they incentivize it. Maybe it's just culture and volunteering but there are so many neighborhoods in SF that really need to be cleaned up and would be cleaned up in Tokyo but aren't here because "not my responsibility"? Everyone assumes it's the city's. Maybe it is? Maybe it should be? Maybe it shouldn't? I kind of wish there was some other way to make it happen.
  - 93po 5y ago
    I've heard a lot of stories of older Japanese people being extremely trash-conscious. The stories I've read are typically Americans living in Japan and getting trash-shamed by an elderly neighbor because they mis-sorted a single can or left a wrapper on a water bottle. The context being that the Japanese person is constantly double checking the American garbage assuming they're going to mess it up.
cletus 5y ago
The tl'dr is it's cultural. The Japanese are more willing to live in smaller spaces and are more community-minded like just having the common decency not to throw trash on the street. In the US, for many people "freedom" is a euphemism for "selfishness" wrapped up as some kind of virtue. Just look at the reaction to a significant portion of the US population to the minor inconvenience of having a jab or wearing a mask. That all being said, I really have a hard time with the Japanophile mindset that seems so popular in the West. It's always seemed like a combination of being a middle-class malaffected discontent who doesn't feel "special" and an idealized version of Japan. Personally, I have two big issues with Japanese culture: 1. Unlike Germany, Japan never faced up to its WW2 legacy. WW2 is barely taught in the Japanese education system and certainly nothing about, say, the Rape of Nanking; and 2. There a strong undercurrent of misogyny that has jus tnever sat right with me.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Seb-C 5y ago
  > Unlike Germany, Japan never faced up to its WW2 legacy. WW2 is barely taught in the Japanese education system What is your source for this? I have openly talked about this with Japanese people because I was curious to know their own biases (which I observed in every country) about this topic. But what they said to me is that it is taught properly. They definitely talk about their own crimes and mistakes. Far more importantly, they also speak about the whole political picture that led to the conflict, and that includes not only the mistakes of Japan, but also most importantly those of Europe and America.
  - ryan_lane 5y ago
    Maybe your friends went to an international school? This is not my experience with talking with people here.
m0llusk 5y ago
> There is no stigma attached to riding the train, it’s simply the standard. Actually, the problem with women getting groped on trains is both widespread and quite damaging in its impacts. It is important to keep issues like this in mind when reviewing different modes of getting about. Trains still serve the public quite well overall, but can be quite difficult for some. Japan also never had anything quite like the Americans with Disabilities Act, so people in wheelchairs or scooters may encounter major barriers.
- awslattery 5y ago
  On the last point, Tokyo has some of the more thoughtful accessibility bits of infrastructure: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2301.html https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2301.html
  - alephnan 5y ago
    I would not say it's Tokyo as a whole that is thoughtful. It's the individual designer which was thoughtful. Where Tokyo/Japan aided is by being receptive and giving the designer autonomy.
- aikinai 5y ago
  For local businesses, I’d agree but the major infrastructure, including trains, are incredibly accessible. I chatted about it with a coworker who visited in a wheelchair. He couldn’t believe how accessible everything was and said it was the best city he’d ever been to since getting the wheelchair. Japan as a whole is also extremely considerate of the blind.
- lovemenot 5y ago
  You say groping is quite widespread. I am not going to argue because there is surely some improvement to be made there. But context is important. Daily ridership of all Tokyo rail lines is around 40 million. So, assume reported groping cases are around twenty per day (this is a ballpark estimate I don't know the actual number). And say only one in fifty of actual cases are reported, that gives us 1000 actual gropings per day. So we have around 0.00025% of rides affected. Again, it's not nothing and it should be better, but I wouldn't want people to get the impression that there is a high statistical likelihood of being groped when riding the rails in Tokyo.
zz865 5y ago
> Despite being such a world-renowned mega city, Tokyo ranks 99th in terms of the most expensive average price for a one bedroom apartment in the city center (wherever that may be). These Japan-is-wonderful articles of late have such a recency bias. It was only a few decades ago when Tokyo was famous for having the most expensive real estate in the world.
- zacherates 5y ago
  > It was only a few decades ago when Tokyo was famous for having the most expensive real estate in the world. Yes, but then they did something about it [1] instead of pulling up the ladder behind them. [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    I felt that article is misleading. First off it used non inflation adjusted percentage change as an indication that Tokyo kept prices down. But in reality it was already very expensive. And then it claims they issued lots of building permits - but houses in Japan have very short lifecycles (like 30 years) and it is normal for a buyer to do a tear down and rebuild (which requires a permit).
  - zz865 5y ago
    Yeah they had a huge bust, a 30 year deflationary spiral that bankrupted the country. Nice.
lovemenot 5y ago
This article made me feel proud of my adopted city. I agree with its premises and the things that the article argues make Tokyo so great are actually the reasons I moved here many years ago. And stayed.
0max 5y ago
Los Angeles would be a much more desirable region if it had Tokyo's rail network.
- greggman3 5y ago
  It used to have better than Tokyo (T_T) If you want a reference, go watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where the main character, Eddie, says "Who needs a car in LA? We've got the best public transportation system in the world" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7DHYmk0gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7DHYmk0gw And it did at the time https://www.amazon.com/This-Pacific-Electric-Stephanie-Edwards/dp/B01KBFRJYI https://www.amazon.com/This-Pacific-Electric-Stephanie-Edwar...
mikkyang 5y ago
The article highlights some great points about why Tokyo is so livable, but having been in the market for a home here last year, I also think the depreciation of Japanese real estate (at least the physical structures) is a big factor. New houses and apartments depreciate significantly once bought, and old homes can even trend into negative territory. Land that someone has cleared for you can be more expensive than the same land with an old home on it that they presume you will later pay to demolish. The land itself in Tokyo can appreciate, but not enough to offset the rapid depreciation of the structure. A lot of the avoidance around old homes is cultural (maybe because of frequent natural disasters), and it’s started a self-fulfilling prophecy where old homes can actually not be livable. People build homes with the depreciation in mind and don’t generally use long—lasting materials, leading to homes that aren’t actually livable a few decades later when they might be sold. On the bright side, this leads to a lot of opportunities for architects to build new homes, so it’s also part of the reason why you see so many uniquely designed homes out of Japan.
- quantisan 5y ago
  Freakonomics podcast discussed this vicious cycle about disposable Japanese homes https://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-full-transcript/ https://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-d...
- AlanSE 5y ago
  I've also heard about how homes in Japan are (comparatively to the US) poorly insulated. So that tracks.
  - ramchip 5y ago
    It depends where in Japan. Homes in Tokyo are poorly insulated. Homes in Hokkaido are usually pretty decent.
    - presentation 5y ago
      Yep, it doesn’t get that cold in Tokyo so there’s less incentive.
alephnan 5y ago
Japan and Tokyo works because people "make themselves small". Whether that is wearing your backpack on the front on the subway, wearing a mask, sharing communal spaces, or not shilling dogecoin. Most foreigners grow contemptuous of Japan when vacation mode subsides and they have to abide the social contract and logistics which makes "Tokyo Works". For example, waste disposal and recycling are complex (and I've worked in AdTech). Leasing an apartment involves 3-4x months of deposit, including a gift to the landlord as residual traces from Japan's feudal system, a inch thick of paperwork, and signing half a dozen places that you are not a yakuza member. Getting cell phone service too is a process, and when you go signup, about half a dozen employees will loop in and out of the process. There's also kinds of ceremony and bureauracy, and things that are hard to reconcile for foreigners who are used to "freedom" and pursuing ones desires. Personally, everything about Japan makes sense to me, and why I'm one of the survivors. I literally have nothing to complain about Japan, whereas the Reddit group r/japanlife has the highest concentration of cynical and mopey people I've ever seen. Most of the unhappy foreigners come to Japan/Tokyo thinking it is like London or NYC, except with Anime and Manga. I urge you to reassess the day-to-day realities before committing to a foreign country. There are things which the Japanese expect everyone to do properly, and whether you think it's inefficient/dumb, it's not up for negotiation or discussion. For example, if you enter the subway gate and realize you meant to take a different subway gate/train, you can't back out, and some station staff will give you a hard time and hold you hostage instead of giving you a solution. There's a strict protocol, which Japanese people have been trained all their life to not err, and when (foreigners) make these mistakes, Japanese people are like deer in headlights. Or, you bought a drink of the vending machine, then the bus comes, and you run to catch the bus forgetting to discard the drink. This will be frowned upon, and if you're a tourist, you're probably oblivious to it, but you are creating stress for people around you. Don't come to Japan if the believe in the notion of systemic oppression. Japan is not politically progressive, and it is socially acceptable, sometimes even encouraged, to not be an independent thinker or question social norms/tradition. This is a stark contrast to the SF/HN culture, especially the "hacker" mentality is frowned on. Consider how Japan only has 44 billionaires, whereas Taiwan which has 1/5th the population has 36. White collar Americans are obsessed with Japanese high cultural exports like Omakase because the Japanese do things that don't scale. They dedicate their life to one modest craft, and focus on the details. Meanwhile, the typical tech person have this sentiment to focus on the "big picture" and things that scale to millions, billions, even if that means moving fast and breaking things. That's kind of not Japanese. Americans have been taught to think about "big picture", and maybe that's why America produces many innovations and innovators, but the Japanese are about doing things right. Nowadays everyone is talking about Squid Games, which is a huge commercial success mostly to Netflix, but it was accused of plagiarizing the Japanese "As the goods will". There are lots of cultish products that come out of Japan, because people aren't thinking about how they can capture the value to be billion dollar idea, but just focusing on their craft ( as a Study Japanese before you go. You'll learn that there are three writing systems, one of which is used to pronounce English words, but the Japanese way. This is one of the many reasons the Japanese do not speak good English. Foreigners complain the Japanese don't speak English, but that reaction is precisely why they will be unhappy in Japan. This is there country, and the Japanese are proud, and as far as they are concerned, English is foreign, and if you are in Japan, you have to pronounce it in the mora-timed Japanese tongue. Deal with it. Foreigners complain about how it's hard to make friends or be fully accepted, even after being in Japan for years and speaking good Japanese, but Japan was never keen on having foreigners here. It's like people who invite themselves to a party. Westerners feel entitled to the idea that the world is an immigrant country like the United States, but Japan is not. Just observe the historically districts where they placed foreigners. It's hard to describe Japan. Japanese zen poems known as koens are seemingly contradictory or paradox. That's how I would summarize Japan. For all this about being private and not voicing your opinion and making yourself small, the Japanese love Twitter more than anyone else. It's a land of many paradoxes and contradictions, that is not meant to be logically resolved and reconciled. For example, the thing that are trending right now are having an American BBQ, having an American tent and camping in the park. Meanwhile, the stories and staff providing these services can't speak English. It's not sufficient to call this appropriation. Japanese people love having weddings in a church/chapel. Other than that, it's a pleasant / awkward feeling to stumble a church by accident in Japan. Watch Silence by Martin Scorsese to learn some history.
aikinai 5y ago
The structure of the city also makes it a great place to raise a family. That's why my family settled here. The kids have a safe, walkable community where almost everyone knows them and they feel at home and empowered. But we're also in a global center with great opportunities, jobs, school, etc.
goodpoint 5y ago
> Japan had to make a post-war decision to either adopt the American automobile-focused city or to rely on public transportation. Of course, they chose public transportation > likely because of Japan’s lack of natural resources like oil Rather because of a strong socialist influence in urban planning. Also powerful worker unions in public transportation.
oogabooga13 5y ago
I watch the shibayu live crossing cam on YouTube sometimes, definitely catch some hay walkers on there.
oogabooga13 5y ago
I've watched the Shibuya crossing livestream, definitely catch some "jaywalkers" on the cam from time to time. :-)
tuatoru 5y ago
To get an idea of life in Japan as a foreigner, I recommend the blog "Japanese Rule of 7"[1]. The author has also compiled a bunch of his essays into a book, "Strange Nights, and Some Days Too: Why You’ll Love Japan, for About a Year"[2]. 1. https://japaneseruleof7.com/ https://japaneseruleof7.com/ 2. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735174629 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735174629
- alephnan 5y ago
  > Strange Nights, and Some Days Too: Why You’ll Love Japan, for About a Year"[2]. Thanks for this. Sounds about right. I'm approaching the 1 year mark, still love Japan, still think it's better than America even though I make 1/4th as much, but I'm starting to question if it's all worth it when I can just live an easy stressfree (it's not the money) life back in the states.
euske 5y ago
Ehh, as a person who lived in Tokyo and NYC for a while, I can say that the difference isn't as big. It's true that Tokyo is way cleaner and the trains are much better, but Tokyo streets are harder to navigate (as it's not grid based) compared to NYC or Kyoto/Osaka, and the article misses one big potential factor about its livablity: Tokyo's earthquake readiness is pretty sketchy and it hasn't been tested for about 100 years (the 2011 earthquake affected a different part of Japan; it was a blip to Tokyo). The city requires huge influx of daily goods from all over Japan, and we are all not sure what's really going to happen if it's disrupted. It is a convenient city to live for now, but I'd say it's kinda short-sighted view.
3np 5y ago
> While trains have long been part of Japanese daily life after most of Tokyo was leveled during World War II, Japan had to make a post-war decision to either adopt the American automobile-focused city or to rely on public transportation. Of course, they chose public transportation, likely because of Japan’s lack of natural resources like oil. This is true for Tokyo and other major metropolises and larger cities. Having lived in smaller towns and the country-side, I can confidently say that the rest of the country has gone all-in on the American car-centered infrastructure. Living in a town of 30k citizens in Scandinavia for years, I never felt the need for a car. In Japan, it’s essential. Busses run 1/h or so and stops are sparse. The towns themselves are sprawling and not very accessible by foot. Bicycling is a tiring and dangerous endeavour.
- fomine3 5y ago
  This is what commenter tend to miss even if they lived in Japan. Without non-urban car-centric cities, 8 big Japanese car manufacturers won't happen.
- thewileyone 5y ago
  I rented a car and drove to the lakes around Mt Fuji. Confirmed that outside the urban areas, you really do need a car to get around.
  - 3np 5y ago
    Hit me up next time you’re in the area! :D
resheku 5y ago
seeing there's many knowledgeable people here any recommendations on finding job in Tokyo?

245 points by jseliger 5y ago

So many commenters relating widely varying experiences and then arguing about it… As Tokyo is massive in land area and population, and as visitors (us) are all unique, each expertise and feeling about “the people in Tokyo” is likely to be different. It makes no sense to argue about different experiences.

tuberelay 5y ago

japan is a deeply racist xenophobic ethnostate with negligible immigration. even if this makes it a great place to live, it is deeply problematic, and should be remedied by throwing open the borders to indiscriminately allow in those from failed states

Amorymeltzer 5y ago

Regarding the quote: >"A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation," says Colombian politician Gustavo Petro. Jason Kottke goes through it[0], but it seems the real source is Bogotá Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who translated it as: >An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport. 0: https://kottke.org/21/11/where-the-rich-use-public-transportation https://kottke.org/21/11/where-the-rich-use-public-transport...

raziel414 5y ago

I'm an American living in Tokyo, and it easily has the best quality of life out any city I've lived in. - The public transit is literally the best I've ever seen, both in America or Europe. The main train line in Tokyo (the Yamanote line) stops at my local station ever 2-3 minutes during peak hours, and around every 5-7 minutes during the off hours. - The streets are clean, safe, and well maintained. Unlike cities I've seen in America and Europe, garbage doesn't pile up in the streets. - Service workers, partially in the government, have been friendly and helpful. Even when I didn't speak the language well, I've never had trouble at the government office getting something done.

nec4b 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kor5nHtZQ I wouldn't consider that as the best public transit ever.
junon 5y ago
I've moved myself to Germany and enjoy it here but I also love the idea of Japan, perhaps sometime in the future. I've heard it's insanely difficult to get a residency visa there, along with of course the language barrier. Was that the case for you?
- tasogare 5y ago
  It's not hard to get a visa if you get a job or for study. The thing is, it's hard to get those while being outside the country.
  - presentation 5y ago
    Study is pretty easy (assuming the borders open) - anyone can do that tomorrow by joining a Japanese language school. Of course, you have to… actually study and do classes, so it’s not a free pass. Work visas do depend on finding an employer - I do know of several people who worked for multinational corporations and asked to be transferred to the Japan office. There’s also the option to self sponsor a work visa by running a business in Japan, though it does have capital requirements and is a little tricky.
    - johnwalkr 5y ago
      A few cities have startup visas now, which give you a year or two to meet the capital requirements.
- raziel414 5y ago
  I transferred to Tokyo though my employer, so they handled the visa.
- 5y ago

ArtWomb 5y ago

Perhaps all exist in a perpetual state of: "moving to Tokyo"

lostlogin 5y ago

That whole site is worth a look - there are some great articles.

superflit2 5y ago

Why no one talks about high IQ and very homogeneous society? Having a coehesive culture, high IQ makes a country goals easier to attain.

alphabettsy 5y ago
High IQ?
- tasogare 5y ago
  East-Asians have an average IQ of 105/106 vs 100 for Europeans.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Culture is probably more relevant than average IQ in terms of factors for a working city.
- superflit2 5y ago
  Yes https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-iq-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/average-i... Now think about places and cities with good quality of life… And check ranking
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    This source is attributed to a self-identified eugenicist. I think we can do better on here.
- kjs3 5y ago
  Considering the well documented biases inherent in IQ tests, he means "no brown people".
  - Zababa 5y ago
    What are those "well documented biases inherent in IQ tests" and how do they affect "brown people"?

kory 5y ago

“Life where I’m from” has a great video on why japan’s zoning helped it become so livable. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk https://youtube.com/watch?v=wfm2xCKOCNk

ur-whale 5y ago

One aspect of Tokyo that is really nice is that many areas of the city are really organized like small villages. When you live in one of those, the 'big city' feeling that you might experience, say in one of the European capitals or in N/Y is completely gone, and it feels really good.

csomar 5y ago
I wonder if the fact that it was not the historical capital of Japan has something to do with it. European and American cities (like London/Paris/NY) started from a center and moved outward by outside pressure for growth. Tokyo seems like a bunch of mini-cities around the bay; and then suddenly it became a capital city.
- rablackburn 5y ago
  It did start with a center. What is currently the imperial palace was originally Edo castle that Tokugawa built when he decided to move the capital there. But it was a castle city like any other once it was built. But as people moved there and the daimyō’s money flowed in, it began growing outwards engulfing the surrounding towns and villages. The exact type of growth you ascribe to London and Paris.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    And, while I'm less familiar with the historical growth of London and Paris, cities like New York and Boston definitely merged together previously separate communities. (And, in the case of Boston, at least two depending upon how you count are still separate cities but part of a single metropolis.)
- marcellus23 5y ago
  I don’t think you’re very familiar with how NY was formed.

wisty 5y ago

It talks a lot about the lack of zoning, which (combined with lots of low-rise) leads to convenience stores on every corner. This makes living a lot easier (you don't need to drive to get basic groceries), reduces crime (eyes on the street discourage crime) and creates a local social network (people from the street will meet there). The downside is that Japan's lack of planning makes it kind of ugly and boring. I love the utilitarian look, and a functional city is one that can have other priorities, but the physical city fabric is treated mostly as a disposable commodity.

glitchcrab 5y ago
I think the whole idea of having to drive to get groceries is a fairly uniquely American thing. Here in the UK in a medium sized town I have multiple places to buy food within walking distance, from a corner shop (small, has convenience items only), up to a full sized supermarket.
chrischen 5y ago
I actually like the organic layout of the streets. Maybe sucks for driving, but it seems to be conducive for walking because the paths radiate out of transit hubs. For a grid layout it would force people walking to take suboptimal zig-zag paths. One anecdote about the grocery stores and organic planing versus central planning: In Japan the grocery stores are often placed closer to stations and transit stops or often in the station itself, so it covers people during their commute walking back home. In San Francisco I have no idea what the logic behind the placement of grocery stores is. I bet it has something to do around the ownership of cars because they are not placed in very logical positions and all include giant parking lots despite being in the middle of the city. So this very feature resists any motion towards usage of public transit because they are never designed with transit in mind. For example my route in SF to the grocery store would be a 25 minute walk from the BART station because I have to go past my house to the middle of nowhere, and then walk 15 minutes back. To add insult to injury there is no parking for my apartment so it's like the grocery stores were designed for people who driving in from outside the city for some reason.
- SllX 5y ago

0x77x66 5y ago

Tokyo is nice but the commute no shangri la. Trips longer than 10km are usually a hour because of so many train stops. Average commute to work is ~50min in a crowded train standing up. Meanwhile on my social feed my Japanese friends will admire the large living spaces in the US. I think most people are just convinced it is always better somewhere else.

presentation 5y ago
That said at least it was feasible for me to live in a clean, $650/mo apartment of my own, in a great neighborhood, <15 minutes from Shinjuku/25 to Tokyo. The concept of an equivalent place in a place like NYC is laughable.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  I saw a video on YouTube showcasing $200-$250 rent rooms in the Tokyo area, some of them not that far out in terms of commute from the center. That is definitely something that doesn’t exist in the states, our housing codes would allow for it (small 2.5 tatami in area, they had no heat, shared toilets, no shower/bathing in the building).
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    A lot of things aren't available in North America because of the misguided belief that prohibiting low-quality market options leads those options being substituted one-for-one with higher quality options. This applies to micro-suites, prohibited by minimum floor size ordinances, low-wage work, prohibited by minimum wage mandates, etc. What actually happens is that more people are excluded from that market, e.g. people not being able to afford to live in SF, that - if microsuites were legal - would be able to. This comes down to not trusting individuals, particularly those in lower skill/income brackets, and their own choices.
rayiner 5y ago
> Meanwhile on my social feed my Japanese friends will admire the large living spaces in the US. I think most people are just convinced it is always better somewhere else. I think it’s about different people having different preferences. Most folks in Dallas (average commute under 30 minutes) aren’t wishing they were crammed into subway car in Tokyo. Likewise, people who like the urban lifestyle in Tokyo probably aren’t wishing they were stuck in freeway traffic in Dallas.

rablackburn 5y ago

Despite the title, people who have never lived in Japan probably still don’t have a great idea of how it runs after reading the article. So here’s a quick rundown of how the decentralisation mentioned in the article is structured: Japan is split into 47 todōfuken (都道府県), their closest analog to a US “state”. You’ll hear these called “Prefectures”, but just like the US has states (Washington) and territories (Washington DC), Japan only has 43 prefectures, the rest are technically different types of district. Tokyo is (the only) “metropolis” region directly under the national government. Across Japan every local district is split up into shichōson (市町村), cities, towns, and villages. “Central” Tokyo is a special area where that standard shichōson system doesn’t apply, except really it does, we just call things “wards” instead. Every local district, whether city, town, village, or ward, is essentially the face of government in that community. They provide public services like sanitation, education, and community engagement events. When it’s time to vote, you will go to your local [city|town|village|ward] office and do it there. These local offices have quite a bit of power (and are what people are talking about most of the time when they refer to the “infamous” Japanese bureaucracy. For an excellent film looking at this world, I cannot recommend Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” enough. I believe it’s in IMDbs top 10 of all time), while they are often ridiculed for being slow and stuffy, they are a very real check and balance against the prefectural and national governments. Tokyo has a city-wide government (analogous to a state government) that is politically important at a national level, an example of the more illustrious institutions run by this level is the famous Tokyo metropolitan police. As the article stated, Tokyo is rich. 10th largest gdp nation in the world if it was an independent nation, this means there’s a lot of money flowing through that city government. Depending on who you ask, this is the level that shady deals, and blatant corruption happens most. The tabloids are always busy in Tokyo. The point is, all these powers seem to be quite well-balanced, and the citizenry engaged enough to keep them in check, in other words, like a well functioning democracy. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its downsides, and I’m no fan of Tokyo after living there for four years, but it is a remarkably well-working system. I’d still rather be in Osaka, or better yet, the countryside tbh.

throw0101a 5y ago
> So here’s a quick rundown of how the decentralisation mentioned in the article Sounds bit like: > Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority.[1] The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) > […] and the citizenry engaged enough to keep them in check, in other words, like a well functioning democracy. How is the need/desire to bring forward and expose problems balanced with the Japanese cultural habit (?) of not rocking the boat? * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome * https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/出る釘は打たれる https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/出る釘は打たれる

efwrgerwg 5y ago

Mainly because its citizenry and its bureaucracy have a personal attachment to their city and society being run cleanly and efficiently. This is not the case in cities like Paris or NYC, where most people see themselves as guests or even victims attempting to finesse the system by doing the least work possible. Since pretty much every public worker abides by this system there is an implicit agreement to never pursue any offenders (be they lazy or just incompetent), for everyone is used to doing the bare minimum and they like the arrangement.

presentation 5y ago
This is definitely part of it - people are born in Tokyo, live in Tokyo, and plan to die in Tokyo. Coupled with much stronger cultural norms around not being a pain in the neck to strangers and respecting public amenities, this changes the calculus for whether or not you’re going to trash your city.

numair 5y ago

I don’t think most foreigners are willing to do the work that it takes to “make Tokyo work,” which I have seen first-hand. First, there is the tax rate, which is super-high and the vast majority of Japanese pay without complaint. I am pretty sure there’s the highest top bracket in the world, and it’s super-progressive so you hit it quickly. Many of the foreigners who move to Japan try all sorts of tricks to avoid paying it (you get 5 years to avoid paying on foreign income not brought into the country), which just makes everyone else silently dislike them even more. I’ve literally been at a Japanese government office filing papers and overheard a Singapore resident asking a government employee if he can just transfer his business to a family member to avoid the tax rate because “it’s just too much.” Then you’ve got the sense of shared suffering that is part of Japanese culture and super important. I think a lot of people who talk about “racial cohesion” are incorrectly identifying this, which is basically a sense that “we are all here to make this work for each other, and if you’re not you’re part of an other.” It’s not a race thing, although it can appear that way to others — if you’ve grown up in Northern Europe, you’ll understand what I mean; it’s kind of like the Asian version of Jante Law. I can’t stress that shared suffering thing enough. Since the 1600s, Tokyo was destroyed on average of, like, once every 10 years, and right now everyone’s just waiting for the Great Earthquake and The Great Mount Fuji Eruption. It’s a hilarious, tragic, comical, romantic drama that plays out in the Japanese subconscious. (And since everyone will continue to pay a surtax for their shared national obligation to rebuild after the Fukushima earthquake — a tax that will continue for another decade — everyone’s also acutely aware that the bill will be massive, and they’ll be expected to contribute. Cue more foreigners departing to avoid taxes.) The tax rate, combined with the sense of obligation to each other, supports one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Which in turn is part of one of the best government administrations in the world, filled with extremely smart people who feel a real sense of obligation toward their country to do a really good job. (Don’t confuse this with the political machine... let’s just not go into that.) When you have a society where everyone is willing to “suffer” for each other, you can have a society like Tokyo. Like so many other great places, it works because people can just sort of expect others to do what’s right. And conversely, for reasons that look racist to outsiders but really aren’t, everyone also silently expects foreigners to do everything wrong. If there was an influx of people into Japan who didn’t share these values — and they’re real values, not a race thing — the whole country would quickly fall apart.

spike021 5y ago

The Youtube channel "Life where I'm from" recently put out a video (one week ago) about how Japan keeps itself clean. In some cases it's even the elderly living in the smaller neighborhoods who will "find something to do", such as tending to the public area near the street outside of their home, sweeping and washing it clean, throwing away loose trash (cans, bottles, etc.).

greggman3 5y ago
This! I don't know how they incentivize it. Maybe it's just culture and volunteering but there are so many neighborhoods in SF that really need to be cleaned up and would be cleaned up in Tokyo but aren't here because "not my responsibility"? Everyone assumes it's the city's. Maybe it is? Maybe it should be? Maybe it shouldn't? I kind of wish there was some other way to make it happen.
- 93po 5y ago
  I've heard a lot of stories of older Japanese people being extremely trash-conscious. The stories I've read are typically Americans living in Japan and getting trash-shamed by an elderly neighbor because they mis-sorted a single can or left a wrapper on a water bottle. The context being that the Japanese person is constantly double checking the American garbage assuming they're going to mess it up.

cletus 5y ago

The tl'dr is it's cultural. The Japanese are more willing to live in smaller spaces and are more community-minded like just having the common decency not to throw trash on the street. In the US, for many people "freedom" is a euphemism for "selfishness" wrapped up as some kind of virtue. Just look at the reaction to a significant portion of the US population to the minor inconvenience of having a jab or wearing a mask. That all being said, I really have a hard time with the Japanophile mindset that seems so popular in the West. It's always seemed like a combination of being a middle-class malaffected discontent who doesn't feel "special" and an idealized version of Japan. Personally, I have two big issues with Japanese culture: 1. Unlike Germany, Japan never faced up to its WW2 legacy. WW2 is barely taught in the Japanese education system and certainly nothing about, say, the Rape of Nanking; and 2. There a strong undercurrent of misogyny that has jus tnever sat right with me.

deleted 5y ago
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Seb-C 5y ago
> Unlike Germany, Japan never faced up to its WW2 legacy. WW2 is barely taught in the Japanese education system What is your source for this? I have openly talked about this with Japanese people because I was curious to know their own biases (which I observed in every country) about this topic. But what they said to me is that it is taught properly. They definitely talk about their own crimes and mistakes. Far more importantly, they also speak about the whole political picture that led to the conflict, and that includes not only the mistakes of Japan, but also most importantly those of Europe and America.
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  Maybe your friends went to an international school? This is not my experience with talking with people here.

m0llusk 5y ago

> There is no stigma attached to riding the train, it’s simply the standard. Actually, the problem with women getting groped on trains is both widespread and quite damaging in its impacts. It is important to keep issues like this in mind when reviewing different modes of getting about. Trains still serve the public quite well overall, but can be quite difficult for some. Japan also never had anything quite like the Americans with Disabilities Act, so people in wheelchairs or scooters may encounter major barriers.

awslattery 5y ago
On the last point, Tokyo has some of the more thoughtful accessibility bits of infrastructure: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2301.html https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2301.html
- alephnan 5y ago
  I would not say it's Tokyo as a whole that is thoughtful. It's the individual designer which was thoughtful. Where Tokyo/Japan aided is by being receptive and giving the designer autonomy.
aikinai 5y ago
For local businesses, I’d agree but the major infrastructure, including trains, are incredibly accessible. I chatted about it with a coworker who visited in a wheelchair. He couldn’t believe how accessible everything was and said it was the best city he’d ever been to since getting the wheelchair. Japan as a whole is also extremely considerate of the blind.
lovemenot 5y ago
You say groping is quite widespread. I am not going to argue because there is surely some improvement to be made there. But context is important. Daily ridership of all Tokyo rail lines is around 40 million. So, assume reported groping cases are around twenty per day (this is a ballpark estimate I don't know the actual number). And say only one in fifty of actual cases are reported, that gives us 1000 actual gropings per day. So we have around 0.00025% of rides affected. Again, it's not nothing and it should be better, but I wouldn't want people to get the impression that there is a high statistical likelihood of being groped when riding the rails in Tokyo.

zz865 5y ago

> Despite being such a world-renowned mega city, Tokyo ranks 99th in terms of the most expensive average price for a one bedroom apartment in the city center (wherever that may be). These Japan-is-wonderful articles of late have such a recency bias. It was only a few decades ago when Tokyo was famous for having the most expensive real estate in the world.

zacherates 5y ago
> It was only a few decades ago when Tokyo was famous for having the most expensive real estate in the world. Yes, but then they did something about it [1] instead of pulling up the ladder behind them. [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  I felt that article is misleading. First off it used non inflation adjusted percentage change as an indication that Tokyo kept prices down. But in reality it was already very expensive. And then it claims they issued lots of building permits - but houses in Japan have very short lifecycles (like 30 years) and it is normal for a buyer to do a tear down and rebuild (which requires a permit).
- zz865 5y ago
  Yeah they had a huge bust, a 30 year deflationary spiral that bankrupted the country. Nice.

lovemenot 5y ago

This article made me feel proud of my adopted city. I agree with its premises and the things that the article argues make Tokyo so great are actually the reasons I moved here many years ago. And stayed.

0max 5y ago

Los Angeles would be a much more desirable region if it had Tokyo's rail network.

greggman3 5y ago
It used to have better than Tokyo (T_T) If you want a reference, go watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" where the main character, Eddie, says "Who needs a car in LA? We've got the best public transportation system in the world" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7DHYmk0gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7DHYmk0gw And it did at the time https://www.amazon.com/This-Pacific-Electric-Stephanie-Edwards/dp/B01KBFRJYI https://www.amazon.com/This-Pacific-Electric-Stephanie-Edwar...

mikkyang 5y ago

The article highlights some great points about why Tokyo is so livable, but having been in the market for a home here last year, I also think the depreciation of Japanese real estate (at least the physical structures) is a big factor. New houses and apartments depreciate significantly once bought, and old homes can even trend into negative territory. Land that someone has cleared for you can be more expensive than the same land with an old home on it that they presume you will later pay to demolish. The land itself in Tokyo can appreciate, but not enough to offset the rapid depreciation of the structure. A lot of the avoidance around old homes is cultural (maybe because of frequent natural disasters), and it’s started a self-fulfilling prophecy where old homes can actually not be livable. People build homes with the depreciation in mind and don’t generally use long—lasting materials, leading to homes that aren’t actually livable a few decades later when they might be sold. On the bright side, this leads to a lot of opportunities for architects to build new homes, so it’s also part of the reason why you see so many uniquely designed homes out of Japan.

quantisan 5y ago
Freakonomics podcast discussed this vicious cycle about disposable Japanese homes https://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-full-transcript/ https://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-d...
AlanSE 5y ago
I've also heard about how homes in Japan are (comparatively to the US) poorly insulated. So that tracks.
- ramchip 5y ago
  It depends where in Japan. Homes in Tokyo are poorly insulated. Homes in Hokkaido are usually pretty decent.
  - presentation 5y ago
    Yep, it doesn’t get that cold in Tokyo so there’s less incentive.

alephnan 5y ago

Japan and Tokyo works because people "make themselves small". Whether that is wearing your backpack on the front on the subway, wearing a mask, sharing communal spaces, or not shilling dogecoin. Most foreigners grow contemptuous of Japan when vacation mode subsides and they have to abide the social contract and logistics which makes "Tokyo Works". For example, waste disposal and recycling are complex (and I've worked in AdTech). Leasing an apartment involves 3-4x months of deposit, including a gift to the landlord as residual traces from Japan's feudal system, a inch thick of paperwork, and signing half a dozen places that you are not a yakuza member. Getting cell phone service too is a process, and when you go signup, about half a dozen employees will loop in and out of the process. There's also kinds of ceremony and bureauracy, and things that are hard to reconcile for foreigners who are used to "freedom" and pursuing ones desires. Personally, everything about Japan makes sense to me, and why I'm one of the survivors. I literally have nothing to complain about Japan, whereas the Reddit group r/japanlife has the highest concentration of cynical and mopey people I've ever seen. Most of the unhappy foreigners come to Japan/Tokyo thinking it is like London or NYC, except with Anime and Manga. I urge you to reassess the day-to-day realities before committing to a foreign country. There are things which the Japanese expect everyone to do properly, and whether you think it's inefficient/dumb, it's not up for negotiation or discussion. For example, if you enter the subway gate and realize you meant to take a different subway gate/train, you can't back out, and some station staff will give you a hard time and hold you hostage instead of giving you a solution. There's a strict protocol, which Japanese people have been trained all their life to not err, and when (foreigners) make these mistakes, Japanese people are like deer in headlights. Or, you bought a drink of the vending machine, then the bus comes, and you run to catch the bus forgetting to discard the drink. This will be frowned upon, and if you're a tourist, you're probably oblivious to it, but you are creating stress for people around you. Don't come to Japan if the believe in the notion of systemic oppression. Japan is not politically progressive, and it is socially acceptable, sometimes even encouraged, to not be an independent thinker or question social norms/tradition. This is a stark contrast to the SF/HN culture, especially the "hacker" mentality is frowned on. Consider how Japan only has 44 billionaires, whereas Taiwan which has 1/5th the population has 36. White collar Americans are obsessed with Japanese high cultural exports like Omakase because the Japanese do things that don't scale. They dedicate their life to one modest craft, and focus on the details. Meanwhile, the typical tech person have this sentiment to focus on the "big picture" and things that scale to millions, billions, even if that means moving fast and breaking things. That's kind of not Japanese. Americans have been taught to think about "big picture", and maybe that's why America produces many innovations and innovators, but the Japanese are about doing things right. Nowadays everyone is talking about Squid Games, which is a huge commercial success mostly to Netflix, but it was accused of plagiarizing the Japanese "As the goods will". There are lots of cultish products that come out of Japan, because people aren't thinking about how they can capture the value to be billion dollar idea, but just focusing on their craft ( as a Study Japanese before you go. You'll learn that there are three writing systems, one of which is used to pronounce English words, but the Japanese way. This is one of the many reasons the Japanese do not speak good English. Foreigners complain the Japanese don't speak English, but that reaction is precisely why they will be unhappy in Japan. This is there country, and the Japanese are proud, and as far as they are concerned, English is foreign, and if you are in Japan, you have to pronounce it in the mora-timed Japanese tongue. Deal with it. Foreigners complain about how it's hard to make friends or be fully accepted, even after being in Japan for years and speaking good Japanese, but Japan was never keen on having foreigners here. It's like people who invite themselves to a party. Westerners feel entitled to the idea that the world is an immigrant country like the United States, but Japan is not. Just observe the historically districts where they placed foreigners. It's hard to describe Japan. Japanese zen poems known as koens are seemingly contradictory or paradox. That's how I would summarize Japan. For all this about being private and not voicing your opinion and making yourself small, the Japanese love Twitter more than anyone else. It's a land of many paradoxes and contradictions, that is not meant to be logically resolved and reconciled. For example, the thing that are trending right now are having an American BBQ, having an American tent and camping in the park. Meanwhile, the stories and staff providing these services can't speak English. It's not sufficient to call this appropriation. Japanese people love having weddings in a church/chapel. Other than that, it's a pleasant / awkward feeling to stumble a church by accident in Japan. Watch Silence by Martin Scorsese to learn some history.

aikinai 5y ago

The structure of the city also makes it a great place to raise a family. That's why my family settled here. The kids have a safe, walkable community where almost everyone knows them and they feel at home and empowered. But we're also in a global center with great opportunities, jobs, school, etc.

goodpoint 5y ago

> Japan had to make a post-war decision to either adopt the American automobile-focused city or to rely on public transportation. Of course, they chose public transportation > likely because of Japan’s lack of natural resources like oil Rather because of a strong socialist influence in urban planning. Also powerful worker unions in public transportation.

oogabooga13 5y ago

I watch the shibayu live crossing cam on YouTube sometimes, definitely catch some hay walkers on there.

oogabooga13 5y ago

I've watched the Shibuya crossing livestream, definitely catch some "jaywalkers" on the cam from time to time. :-)

tuatoru 5y ago

To get an idea of life in Japan as a foreigner, I recommend the blog "Japanese Rule of 7"[1]. The author has also compiled a bunch of his essays into a book, "Strange Nights, and Some Days Too: Why You’ll Love Japan, for About a Year"[2]. 1. https://japaneseruleof7.com/ https://japaneseruleof7.com/ 2. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735174629 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735174629

alephnan 5y ago
> Strange Nights, and Some Days Too: Why You’ll Love Japan, for About a Year"[2]. Thanks for this. Sounds about right. I'm approaching the 1 year mark, still love Japan, still think it's better than America even though I make 1/4th as much, but I'm starting to question if it's all worth it when I can just live an easy stressfree (it's not the money) life back in the states.

euske 5y ago

Ehh, as a person who lived in Tokyo and NYC for a while, I can say that the difference isn't as big. It's true that Tokyo is way cleaner and the trains are much better, but Tokyo streets are harder to navigate (as it's not grid based) compared to NYC or Kyoto/Osaka, and the article misses one big potential factor about its livablity: Tokyo's earthquake readiness is pretty sketchy and it hasn't been tested for about 100 years (the 2011 earthquake affected a different part of Japan; it was a blip to Tokyo). The city requires huge influx of daily goods from all over Japan, and we are all not sure what's really going to happen if it's disrupted. It is a convenient city to live for now, but I'd say it's kinda short-sighted view.

3np 5y ago

> While trains have long been part of Japanese daily life after most of Tokyo was leveled during World War II, Japan had to make a post-war decision to either adopt the American automobile-focused city or to rely on public transportation. Of course, they chose public transportation, likely because of Japan’s lack of natural resources like oil. This is true for Tokyo and other major metropolises and larger cities. Having lived in smaller towns and the country-side, I can confidently say that the rest of the country has gone all-in on the American car-centered infrastructure. Living in a town of 30k citizens in Scandinavia for years, I never felt the need for a car. In Japan, it’s essential. Busses run 1/h or so and stops are sparse. The towns themselves are sprawling and not very accessible by foot. Bicycling is a tiring and dangerous endeavour.

fomine3 5y ago
This is what commenter tend to miss even if they lived in Japan. Without non-urban car-centric cities, 8 big Japanese car manufacturers won't happen.
thewileyone 5y ago
I rented a car and drove to the lakes around Mt Fuji. Confirmed that outside the urban areas, you really do need a car to get around.
- 3np 5y ago
  Hit me up next time you’re in the area! :D

resheku 5y ago

seeing there's many knowledgeable people here any recommendations on finding job in Tokyo?