33 ms·

Tokyo: A big city that is also pleasant to live in

293 points by brimnes 5y ago

clock99 5y ago
newuser94303 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20211231074227/https://www.economist.com/special-report/2021/12/07/the-big-city-that-is-also-pleasant-to-live-in https://web.archive.org/web/20211231074227/https://www.econo...
deltaonefour 5y ago
I thought about getting a job there as a dev. However certain things like culture, low pay, the language, and making new friends has held me back. I really loved the city when I visited a couple years back. Does anyone live in Japan as a dev and not really know how to speak japanese? How has the experience been?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Japan is sui generis - if you don't really want to become "of Japan" I can't see a good reason to go there for more than a short sabbatical.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    I mean eventually I want to learn the language right? The point is there will be a period of time where I don't know the language and hang out with my fellow ex-pats. Additionally I will never ever really actually master the language to the point where I'm indistinguishable from a native. I'm just wondering is Japan bearable under these conditions?
    - stanrivers 5y ago
      Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends. On average, the country and its people are incredibly inviting and kind to guests and appreciative of foreigners that learn Japanese. However, you will always be viewed, by the vast majority, as being a guest - even after many many years and fluent Japanese. And some people are fine with that, and some people can't stand that.
      - deltaonefour 5y ago
        Yeah I heard of this, I think I'd be ok with it as this kind of thing would likely happen in China or other asian countries as well. Thanks for the tips. I think this is largely the case for asian countries where the people are more homogeneous. You get much less of this in countries or cities that are much more ethnically and culturally diverse.
      - BossingAround 5y ago
        > Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends. I know what you mean, but I wanted to say that this is true essentially in all parts of the world, with the notable exception of some parts of North America. I think you refer to the subtle changes of behavior that come with the "you're our foreign coworker" that are specific to a lot of Asian cultures and are highly unpleasant, sometimes even racist. That, however, is also present in China, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. Interestingly, in my limited experience, the Philippines is an amazingly open and hearty country without this "insider vs outsider" mentality.
      - timr 5y ago
        I'm of mixed minds on this. The phenomenon is definitely real -- you'll be instinctively treated like a pet by a lot of people. This is frustrating. But I would not go as far as saying "you will always be 'my foreign friend'". Many foreigners in Japan have no marketable skills, and therefore get stuffed into the comfortable role of Foreign Guy, and never leave the role. It's a seductive role: you can get by with pretty minimal language skill and cultural awareness, make enough money to live in a nice place and do fun things, and you don't have to live with any of those annoying rules that drive the natives crazy! So people get to a certain level of cultural proficiency, and stop. Perhaps they teach English (or some other non-Japanese language), and their professional identity becomes...English. They go to foreign-hangout places, and hang out with foreign people. They don't learn the cultural norms beyond tourist-level schtick, and stick out like a sore thumb in any social situation. So yeah, of course those people tend to attract people who fetishize foreigners. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've also met foreigners living and working across the country, in real professional capacities. They have colleagues and friends spouses and lives that I characterize as native as you can get. You're never completely native -- but that's true anywhere.
    - mantas 5y ago
      On top of that, it’s very easy to get stuck in expat community. It’s damn comfy. And it takes a lot of effort to break through. I spent 6 months in Japan a while ago. Working with other gaijins, hanging out with gaijins… My best contact with locals were at gaijin bars. They could speak some English, I could talk to locals. Was it bad? Definitely no. Could I make extra effort to talk to locals more? Yes. But since my goal in life isn’t to cosplay a Japanese…
      - deltaonefour 5y ago
        Yeah, I'm actually ok with this if this is what ends up happening. I'd prefer mingling with the locals, but I get that it may be hard.
- kstenerud 5y ago
  I didn't speak Japanese when I first moved there. In larger cities (especially Tokyo), there are plenty of people who speak English, so it's generally not a huge problem (although you'll find things easier if you do speak the language). The biggest issues are crowding and racism. Don't expect to get into any role of importance, and don't freak out when you hear "gaijin dame" (no foreigners allowed) in some places, or people sudenly moving to seats and tables further from you. On the other side of the coin, you won't be expected to understand how things work, so they'll be very forgiving (in a condescending way) of social gaffes and the strange way you act (after all, you're a foreigner; they all act that way). Many rules won't apply to you, unless you make an effort to have them apply to you (don't do this). You'll make few (if any) friends of the same gender. You will alway be an outsider. If you can live with this, you'll have a fun and interesting time there. Edit: Also, make friends with some oldtimers in the expat community (as long as they're not the jaded kind). They are a treasure trove of information and help. Edit 2: Don't learn Japanese from someone of the opposite gender (unless they're a trained language teacher). You'll sound ridiculous when you speak otherwise, because men and women use very different words and turns of phrases in many cases (nothing worse than hearing a man say "atashi" or the up-pitch "ne" unless he's in drag). Reading Japanese comic books can be helpful here because they tend towards hyperbole, which makes it easier to pick out the differences. I've found that female artists tend to play with language more than male artists. Edit 3: DO NOT BREAK THE LAW. Getting arrested in Japan is a hellish experience, and prison is even worse. Their justice system is still quite medieval. Quoting a friend of mine: "Japan is the most advanced 3rd world country I've seen."
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    Yeah I don't mind being an outsider too much. Thanks, this is a good answer.
    - VRay 5y ago
      A lot of the foreigners living in Tokyo misinterpret tiny bits of nothing as hostility and racism I'm a big guy, sometimes people make space for me on the train or whatever. It isn't racism. I'm a scary and weird looking guy too by local standards, it isn't racism when people gawk a little sometimes. People talk to me like a kid after I completely botch some basic phrase The only racist thing that ever happened to me in years living there was this: I went to a bar with my white friend, and they said "No American" and made an x sign at us. I asked in Japanese "sorry, what was that you said?" and suddenly they welcomed us in.. I guess they just didn't want rowdy dudes who can't speak the language. Definitely not acceptable behavior from them, but not too bad IMO. I get way worse treatment in the USA for being Hispanic than I ever do for being a foreigner in Japan The expat community in Tokyo is kinda obnoxious. There are a lot of lazy, burned out guys who complain about everything
- bedobi 5y ago
  As others have pointed out, you probably don't want to be working for businesses that are run in the Japanese way, but there are plenty of both expat and native run businesses that aren't. The pay will be low but Tokyo is incredibly cheap so it's not really a problem locally. (but it is a problem in the sense that whatever you save won't be worth much elsewhere if you move back to the states or whatever later years later) It goes without saying your experience will be incomparably better the sooner you learn Japanese, and it's nowhere near as hard as popularly portrayed. Give it a shot, you only live once.
  - nonbirithm 5y ago
    I've tried in the past, but didn't hear back from most of the places I applied to. The ones that did respond suggested that I look for a domestic role for the same company because my Japanese wasn't strong enough. I hadn't taken the JLPT at the time but I had been learning the language for 7 years at that point, and I would guess I'm currently at an N3 or N2 level. It does makes sense since they would say that since the JLPT doesn't test for language production, only interpretation. It's likely that I'm just looking in the wrong places, though. About all I understand how to do is to just trawl through public job boards looking for open positions. I still think it would be nice to work in Japan, even if it's only a thing that lasts as long as I can bear it. However, the pandemic has set back so much as visiting Japan as a tourist by several years, so I don't know how that bodes for working there.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  Pay isn't that bad provided your expectations are reasonable. For reference I'm making more here than I could expect to make in NZ/AU/UK but nothing close to what's on offer in SV.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm in SV. Not FAANG but still.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    You can probably make more in China than Japan as a dev, assuming you have some talent that can’t be found easily locally. Of course, it might be impossible now given how the Chinese government has shifted, but that isn’t because of demand.
    - rootsudo 5y ago
      Not impossible, just depends how much in demand are you. Chinese companies prefer to train their employees to learn and then you have 996/007.
- makotobestgirl 5y ago
  Living in Tokyo is amazing, but working for a Japanese company as a dev is probably not a great career move if you're relatively young. Software Engineering in Japan is many years behind the rest of the world, the pay is relatively low, and it isn't considered as desirable of a career as it is in other countries. It would be much better if you could find an international or remote company that allows you to live in Japan. Then you can get the best of both worlds. If you don't speak Japanese you probably wouldn't be able to get a job at a Japanese company anyway. > However certain things like culture the language, and making new friends has held me back I think it's really hard to generalize because it's different from person to person. However, I think it's a very different experience if you speak Japanese. Roughly 95%+ (if not more) of the population in Tokyo does not speak English more than a few words. You can certainly get everything done in English, make contracts, find housing, find friends, there is a big enough community, but your social life will be extremely limited if you don't speak Japanese.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    I thought about getting a remote role for an SV company while living in Tokyo but the timezone difference is way off.
    - cehrlich 5y ago
      I've thought about trying to get a remote role for a company in AU/NZ and living in Japan that way, then you're "only" off by 1-4 hours. Better be good at waking up early though.
- lmm 5y ago
  I've lived here for two years and my Japanese is still not great, though getting better all the time. Both the highs and the lows have been bigger than I expected. I've loved the place on the whole but there have definitely been significant downsides too. If you don't like the culture I'd be very cautious about coming here.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  Don't need to speak to be a dev. Pay is low, rakuten imports devs regularly. Japanese prefer South East Asia/West Europeans vs Americans (North, Central & South.) Learning the language isn't hard either, I passed JLPT N4 within 3 months of just showing up in Tokyo. Max pay would be 40-60K/yr until you get PR &/OR N1/N2. Then it may balloon up a bit but not so much. You should be able to score a free apartment though.
- srvmshr 5y ago
  I am an expat living in Tokyo for 5 years. My language skills is limited - I haven't given any JLPT. I can understand some conversation but can't speak. I depend on my wife for most official paperwork. I have lived in US, China & India before. I work mostly in MLOps. Life is really not that bad. I would probably never go back to US. I work in niche ML & robotics domain and there is enough scope for growth and making new things. About life in general, what expats miss is that Japanese people forgive you for not knowing the language, but they do take offense at not following the general customs of the place. Being loud, making hand gestures, acting aggressively, talking on the phone in a public space & metro etc are big no-no. Too many foreigners feel unwelcome because they refuse to blend in & want to be the sore thumb sticking out. Once someone blends in their society and manages to have japanese folks invite you in their inner circles, you become as thick as a family member. It all boils down to being respectful of the local way of life. If you live in Japan as a Japanese, (and maybe speaking some Japanese e.g N4 level), life is really comfortable & easy
- devilsbabe 5y ago
  I've been working for a large US company in Tokyo for several years now. No need to know Japanese for work; I know a lot of people that speak it very poorly (though I wouldn't recommend that if you're staying here long term). The pay is good (~35M JPY/300K USD at L5) but there are very few companies with this level of compensation so the real cost is in the limited opportunities. Like everywhere, there's good and bad parts to living in Tokyo, but I've enjoyed it for the most part. It's friendly, clean, safe, and relatively cheap. On the other hand, there's sometimes discrimination against foreigners (especially in housing) and I don't appreciate how cramped apartments and houses are.
  - deltaonefour 5y ago
    Are you in FAANG? That level of pay (300k) is also in the higher range for SV. Seems really rare to land such a role given that all the other reported salaries are around 60k. Would love to know if your situation is a fluke or if it's very possible for me to land such a role myself?
    - devilsbabe 5y ago
      The high-paying tech companies in Tokyo that I'm aware of are Google, Amazon, Indeed, Woven Planet, Stripe, and Doordash. Those last two are just starting out here so still have a limited presence. Those are basically your options. Outside of these, TC will go down quickly
- MarkSweep 5y ago
  Just as an existence proof, I interviewed for a team at Apple in Tokyo. The job was all in English and the team members had varying levels of Japanese language ability. I did not get far enough in the interview process to discuss comp.
- leicapowerball 5y ago
  I worked there for two years as an engineer for a multinational without speaking Japanese. The primary language of my team was english so the workdays were fine. I eventually was able to speak enough broken Japanese to order at restaurants, cafes, etc but anything beyond that was impossible for me. I know there are a few companies (Google, Facebook) that are hiring engineers in Japan where English is the primary language used. I have heard that there are also some native Japanese companies, like Mercari, where a significant amount of English is used as well. I found that not speaking Japanese was not that big of a deal especially if you live in central Tokyo or one of the suburbs that have a lot of expats. Most businesses that you would likely frequent will have english menus or speak enough broken english to get by. I had a few health problems while I was out there and there are several clinics that have native english support. The thing I found the most difficult about Japan is making Japanese friends. You will always be an outsider and in general Japanese folks just have different expectations when it comes to "work" friends vs "real" friends. You might think you're super close to a colleague from work but in reality you're a total stranger. It's not uncommon to not even know if someone is married or not. On the other hand if you're okay with having mostly expat friends, the community is very welcoming.
bedobi 5y ago
Having lived in Tokyo for years, the elephant in the room is "cars". The whole city is full of pleasant mixed use neighborhoods that are more or less car-free, and centered around public transport hubs that have everything you need around them. People, including unaccompanied children, can and do safely walk and ride bikes everywhere at all hours of the day, including when grocery shopping etc. The world can learn a lot from this. Before anyone chimes in saying "nO tHeRe r cUrS iN tOkYo tOo" - of course there are! The point is the city isn't designed around cars. (and the parts that are are the least pleasant)
- makotobestgirl 5y ago
  This is honestly the thing that bothers me most about cities the US. Having grown up in Europe, I find many (I'm sure there are exceptions) US cities to be plain ugly and unlivable. The reason is obvious to me. It's that they are designed around cars. It makes such a huge difference.
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    US "cities" are just not dense enough to be called cities. This is not America's fault. They have a resource most of the world lacks: space. Too much space and you cannot make a real city.
    - orn688 5y ago
      There's no "cannot", it's a conscious choice - if you have more space than necessary that absolutely does not require that you expand to fill all of it. And in particular this has caused issues because American cities tend towards sprawl, filling up area with low-density housing that requires significantly more infrastructure per capita, and implementing zoning laws to prevent higher-density development even as the population grows, resulting in housing shortages. Not Just Bikes has some excellent content about this, e.g.: https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY
      - hiptobecubic 5y ago
patio11 5y ago
It’s been notably less pleasant for the last two years, for reasons shared with substantially all cities (ex-China, I suppose). Would heartily recommend it otherwise, which would have surprised me when I was younger. In particular, the neighborhoods allow you to pick your vibe, pace, and sense of scale at multiple points along the continuum, so if e.g. the Shibuya scramble crosswalk is not your idea of a good time you can live five minutes away by train and enjoy tree-lined streets and cozy bistros with a bit of outdoor seating instead.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Chinese cities haven’t been doing much better. You have to wear a face mask everywhere, lots of mass people events are curtailed, domestic and international travel is restricted, and your city can go into lockdown at any time (like Xian right now).
- njwi332 5y ago
  > you can live five minutes away by train and enjoy tree-lined streets and cozy bistros with a bit of outdoor seating instead Do you refer to Daikanyama here? Easily my favourite neighbourhood of Tokyo (so much so that I just bought an apartment to move there in two weeks!)
  - mysecretaccount 5y ago
    Love that neighborhood. Congrats on buying a spot there - it has been my dream to do the same.
tjpnz 5y ago
What I've come to appreciate the most is how easy it is to get around by foot. Everywhere I lived previously seemed to have been built with pedestrians as an afterthought. But in Tokyo you can easily tune out with little chance of coming into contact with traffic. Public transport is also great provided you're ok with crowds, although not as big an issue for me now everything's remote.
Prcmaker 5y ago
I had the pleasure of visiting Tokyo years ago, but after having visited many more cities since I only retrospectively realised how great it really was. I've been making plans to head back since 2019 and am excited to see how my experience changes now smartphones are accessible.
ekianjo 5y ago
If you dont have to work there and commute 1h30 each way per day just to avoid living in a too small apartment and instead spend time in a bedtown where there's nothing around your house. Did you capture that, the Economist?
ipiz0618 5y ago
Tokyo, and most big Japan cities, are probably the only cities I could visit regularly without getting bored. Whether it's cuisine, the shops, or the people, it felt like a home away from home. It's surely super crowded in some areas, but you don't have to go there either. There are plenty of areas where you could enjoy a quiet (literally) afternoon sipping a good coffee without having to queue up. Also, it's so damn clean compared to other major cities in the world. Just avoid the train during peak hours, and you'll enjoy every moment staying there.
- 88840-8855 5y ago
  That's the thing. It's a super great place when you are a tourist. I lived there and I saw the bad sides, too. To keep this amazing tidyness, order, extremely high quality of service, people go to their limits - with low pay and low perspectives. We have these "bad" jobs also here, people in those jobs are half-assing them, are rude or just quit. In Japan, at least from my experience, it's the conservative conformity, the anti-individualism, the meat grinding discipline that keep people doing bad jobs at high pace and quality. It's paradox to me why many individualism loving Westerner are going to Japan and are loving it so much. It's a hell for many many people. Many Japanese are racist, sexist, pedophilia was normalized for a very long time. Women are supposed to be housewifes in middle class families, gender is clearly defined. All this is clearly against the western values that i often hear quoted when I hear the same people talking about "China". But Japan seems to be ok for them. Paradox. Just wished people would start thinking about their attitude towards other nations and would develop norms and values that they apply without bias to everyone in order to avoid double standards. Overall, i enjoyed the positive racism in Japan, i was special and I felt it. I experienced racism, too, but i just ignored it. Working in Japan was bad. I also worked in China and felt that the overall package of racism/work/life/society was better for me.
  - mrkentutbabi 5y ago
    Most of the things you mentioned here is why I like Japan more han the Western world. To be fair, Japan isn’t perfect. But a lot of things make sense for us. Are you a westerner? It seems that your way of thinking is just different than ours. We value things differently. For example, have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Japanese woman prefer to be in traditional role? The western world has a lot of problems too. And its a choice that the western world makes. We make our choice according to our values. This is what we prefer. Harmony takes the first place. Harmony over diversity. We like diversity too but harmony always comes first. Harmony first, diversity later, when we need it. I can talk a lot about this.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
Gee, fuck all these other cities that are all obviously shitholes? I guess?
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I’m gonna laugh my way into the new year with downvotes because I dared to think my city is also pleasant to live in and say so.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    You seem to (inexplicably) entail from «Tokyo [is a] big city that is also pleasant to live in» a number of assumed ideas and unduly conclusions. TFA: > [...] Tokyo is now the world’s largest city, with 37m residents in the metropolitan area and 14m in the city proper. It is also one of the world’s most liveable, with punctual public transport, safe neighbourhoods, clean streets and more restaurants and Michelin stars than any other. In the liveability index of the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister group, Tokyo comes joint fourth, but its population is larger than the combined populations of the others (Adelaide, Auckland, Osaka and Wellington). “It’s possible to have a liveable city at any scale - Tokyo proves that,” says Gabriel Metcalf, at Committee for Sydney, an Australian think-tank. // It offers lessons to developing cities elsewhere. In 1950, 30% of the world’s population was urban; by 2050, 68% will be [...]
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      The title is The big city that is also pleasant to live in, which seems to pretty clearly imply that others are not. The title on HN last night was Tokio: the big city that is also pleasant to live in, which seems like a moderately reasonable edit by OP, but certainly emphasized my perception of that implication. The title has since been edited to be less accurate but, hey yeah, maybe more representative of the article’s content. There is a lot of anti-urban content out there and I’m fairly used to people who don’t live in mine maligning it anyhow. So yeah, I saw the title and took it to be that with a twist. And I read far too much of that already so I didn’t read further.
ehnto 5y ago
> Tokyo comes joint fourth, but its population is larger than the combined populations of the others (Adelaide, Auckland, Osaka and Wellington). Having lived in Adelaide and visited Toyko, Osaka and a bunch of other Japanese cities, I can take a crack at the difference: Adelaide is a great lifestyle city, if you don't actually want to live in a city, love car enabled lifestyles and the outdoors. Tokyo would be great if you just love city life and have an insatiable desire to discover city culture, and you want to spend most of your time as a pedestrian. You just can't run out of things to discover in Tokyo or Japan in general, and everything is easy to get to in Japan from Tokyo. In Adelaide, you need a car to get out of the burbs, it's very car centric, and because you'll eventually run out of stuff to do in the city since it's quite small, you'll need the car to drive out to new places. Public transport is spotty, or non-existent. Trains aren't too bad, if you move here, move near a train. I would recommend Adelaide if you're pretty content with a median lifestyle, and just want to focus on hobbies, sports and don't mind going to the same handful of cafes every year. I think you'd get more mileage out of Tokyo if you want to dive headfirst into city life and city culture. The other difference is that with a low population, hobby groups in Adelaide are small, and what you love may not even be in Adelaide, getting supplies for things can be difficult. Lots of new things don't make it there due to that issue as well. It can feel a bit dead-end in that way. In Tokyo, if you like it, there's a group for you somewhere, and what you want is probably sold nearby.
- bedobi 5y ago
  I honestly don't understand how "cities" like Adelaide, Auckland and Wellington keep making these lists of "most liveable cities". Their low populations mean they just don't have much of the things that make cities desirable. (like, lots of culture, lots of diversity, lots of options for dining and activities etc etc) Granted, that can make them comparatively pleasant and peaceful, with good access to outdoors and fresh air, but yeah, it's disingenuous to even include them in a comparison that includes Tokyo, London, New York, what have you. In case anyone thinks this is me being uncharitable, I currently live in Brisbane Australia, which is hardly a cosmopolitan global elite city either, so this isn't me throwing shade, I'm just saying.
  - 5y ago
02020202 5y ago
natded 5y ago
It lacks diversity.
- xvilka 5y ago
  Tokyo is quite diverse, you can see this even as a tourist.
- leg100 5y ago
  Au contraire. You'll find all sorts of people with different ideas, interests, curiosities, tastes, desires, opinions, vices and virtues; the full gamut of humanity, as you might expect in a metropolis of near 40 million. Yes, certain traits predominate as they do in any culture but if you go looking I'm pretty sure you'll find what you're looking for in Tokyo.
- aikinai 5y ago
  Tokyo has so many people, it couldn’t avoid being one of the most diverse cities in the world. I guess the stereotype is that all 40M people are salaryman drones and housewives, but clearly that’s not true. If even half are something else, that still leaves tens of millions of people to fill out all the other varieties of people. Whatever your culture or interest is, there will be a place you can find that in Tokyo, probably more so then any other city on Earth.
tluyben2 5y ago
I generally do not like cities, at least not to live in, but I really liked HK, Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Tokyo and Melbourne are often mentioned as the greatest and I spent months in both; it really depends what you want, situation you are in, what period in your life etc. I though Melbourne was dead; after midnight the city is just a graveyard. And so was Tokyo. I like cities that are alive: in HK , Shanghai and Bangkok you can do whatever 24/7. It is lively. If I wake up at 3 am craving something or wanting to see a band, chat with someone, I can walk outside and get all of that in many places (not so sure about Shanghai now: that was the longest time ago since I worked there, well in Suzhou, but went to Shanghai all the off time). Even small towns in Asia have that but a mega city like Tokyo was dead; the apartment we were in was in a popular district and friends invited us to craft beer things and such; they shut down at 11pm. In my village (with 100 people) bars are open until 3 am or until the last guest leaves (often after 9 am). It really all depends what you want from a city. As I do not have or want kids, and I work 12 hours a day (by choice!), when I finish, I don't want to hear kitchen is closed etc. No clue why I would pay the money to live in a city then (and I don't as there are no real 24/7 cities that I like in the EU; Berlin but too cold; for the atmosphere I would live there though).
- xvilka 5y ago
  Moscow is 24/7 city as well. Shanghai is promoting nightlife economy on the city level. Both are insanely pedestrian-friendly with one of the best public transportation infrastructure in the world.
  - thruway516 5y ago
    I would like to hear more from people with experience living in Moscow. All of my impressions so far are negative: brutal winters, lawless driving, organized crime - but I think this is due to my relative ignorance. I'm genuinely interested as it's one of the top cities on my travel list
    - xvilka 5y ago
      Well, winters are cold, indeed. Normally between -20C and -30C. I wouldn't call that brutal, though. With central heating it's not a big deal, in my opinion. Lawless driving? For sure not true. Organized crime? I don't think it's significantly higher than in other countries/cities. At least the last 10-20 years.
setgree 5y ago
Coming home from Tokyo to New York in 2018 was depressing. You get so used to living in a dysfunctional society that you forget it's dysfunctional, but getting off the plane at JFK, I was reminded of Biden's comment that our airports are like stepping into a third world country [0]. The next week in New York, I felt like I saw nothing but broken things and lost people. How many places in America: * have good schools and offices within walking distance * have such good public transport that you don't need a car * provide easy access to nature and parks * are affordable to midde-class people? I think the answer might be zero places -- those that meet the first three criteria (Berkeley, parts of NYC, and Seattle) don't meet the fourth. [0] https://abc7ny.com/laguardia-airport-improvements-renovation-at-third-world-country-joe-biden/10046449/ https://abc7ny.com/laguardia-airport-improvements-renovation... -- though technically he was talking about LaGuardia
- _xnmw 5y ago
  New York is an exception though. It's a place for world's super-rich and the immigrants that keep it running. Austin, Texas is way more livable for the middle class.
  - kadomony 5y ago
    Buddy, Austin has garbage public transit and infrastructure. It is not walkable. No one wants to walk in the heat 20 mins to HEB and be accosted by homeless people. It's the latest entry into the shitshow that is garbage American cities.
laurieg 5y ago
Many posters have already mentioned some of the great things about Japanese cities: walkable neighbourhoods, good public transport, life without cars. I agree with all of these. However, you can't get something for nothing. Even in the suburbs there are essentially no gardens (a friend of mine lives way out of town and has a 10m by 10m garden which is enormous and unusual). Houses and apartments are significantly smaller too. I think the tradeoff is worthwhile. You can meet friends at a restaurant instead of at home. You can go to the park instead of play in the garden.
- axpy906 5y ago
  One more drawback to mention (Having lived in Tokyo a few years) it’s worth pointing out its not exactly kid friendly. I really don’t think most big cities are tbh.
  - hylaride 5y ago
    As somebody that lives in the downtown of a large city (Toronto) I disagree, though it will obviously depend on the city. There is so much for kids to do. My kid has access to museums, an aquarium, several parks/playgrounds, children's programs, community centres, etc. All this is within a 15 minute walk.
  - wffurr 5y ago
    With a kid or is that just your impression? I used to like living in the city with a kid. Lots of access to interesting places and activities, able to walk to school and playgrounds and such. It’s lost some allure during the pandemic.
    - axpy906 5y ago
      Small children. It can actually work for older ones I think. Many places were shut on and off due restrictions during our time. Definitely makes thing harder.
  - aeharding 5y ago
    Postwar American suburban development is terrible for raising children, too. https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98 https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98
greggman3 5y ago
I love Tokyo but I know lots of Japanese people that love suburban America. They love the space. I quick search suggests the average size house in Tokyo is 66sq meters where as in LA it's 167sq meters or nearly 2.5x larger. And that's just LA. My guess is plenty of other suburbia cities the average is even larger. I lived in Tokyo for 15 years. My last place was 54sq meters. I like there are more options in sizes than most cities I think USA and I don't believe that everyone needs a huge place. But, I so am envious of people who have space. Space for workshops, craft rooms, etc. My mom is into Love it or List it, and people have enormous houses with yards in suburbia. I'm jealous even though at the moment I prefer carless city lifestyles
- karterk 5y ago
  Does Japan have a concept of suburbs? Are houses larger on the outskirts of Tokyo?
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    I am not a Japan expert, but my understanding is that houses are generally smaller across the country, because land has always come at a premium due to higher population densities.
    - hylaride 5y ago
      Also japan is mountainous and any extra flat land has traditionally been reserved for making food.
  - downrightmike 5y ago
    In the rural towns, houses can be bigger if they are older, but modern design in Japan builds small houses right next to each other and it is easier to build a small tight suburb because of the way infrastructure and land ownership works. So like you'll see a small cluster of a dozen houses all right next to each other in the middle of farm fields.
  - bjowen 5y ago
twobitshifter 5y ago
It’s interesting to look at Tokyo from space, what you’ll see is a type of sprawl but it’s an dense urban sprawl. In the us we have taken to trying to constrain growth to small specific areas to drive up density, but that wasn’t needed in Tokyo to achieve density. It tells me that in some ways our attempts at urban planning through zoning have been ineffective. The reason why a location 5 miles from a city center can only house a single level big box store isn’t due to cars or the great expanse of America. That piece of property could be put to better use if people were able to build as they do in Tokyo. On the other hand, if we aspire to be like Tokyo, we might consider what the Tokyo area originally looked like as a natural environment and how the unchecked growth in density turned most everything to concrete.
Giorgi 5y ago
And also has mafia problems where police will not do anything.
anm89 5y ago
It is unbelievable how true this is . Ive almost got some sort of trauma where living in cities gives me a lot of anxiety and Tokyo is the only exception
muybasado 5y ago
niklaslogren 5y ago
https://archive.fo/CfoWe https://archive.fo/CfoWe
temp8964 5y ago
This kind of thing comes back once a while. You know what? Japan has extremely low birth rate! And very high suicide rate! No. It’s not a pleasant place to live. Not any big city, for a family with 2+ kids.
- kgin 5y ago
  You attribute the birth rate and suicide rate to the urban planning?
lbrito 5y ago
Someone commented that people hate each other in the US more than elsewhere, thus need more space apart from other people. This made me think: how does this supposed US hatred for itself compare with European hatred for "the other"? Living in Moscow I heard from a German girl that she was scorned for being German; in another situation I heard form a Russian man that he felt unwelcome in Germany for being German. I'm not even getting into ancient Spain x Portugal, Poland x Germany kind of enmities.
kadomony 5y ago
Going to Tokyo once was enough to make me hate American cities. We got things so wrong, and we invested so heavily into the wrong infrastructure that we'll never change.

293 points by brimnes 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20211231074227/https://www.economist.com/special-report/2021/12/07/the-big-city-that-is-also-pleasant-to-live-in https://web.archive.org/web/20211231074227/https://www.econo...

deltaonefour 5y ago

I thought about getting a job there as a dev. However certain things like culture, low pay, the language, and making new friends has held me back. I really loved the city when I visited a couple years back. Does anyone live in Japan as a dev and not really know how to speak japanese? How has the experience been?

spoonjim 5y ago
Japan is sui generis - if you don't really want to become "of Japan" I can't see a good reason to go there for more than a short sabbatical.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I mean eventually I want to learn the language right? The point is there will be a period of time where I don't know the language and hang out with my fellow ex-pats. Additionally I will never ever really actually master the language to the point where I'm indistinguishable from a native. I'm just wondering is Japan bearable under these conditions?
  - stanrivers 5y ago
    Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends. On average, the country and its people are incredibly inviting and kind to guests and appreciative of foreigners that learn Japanese. However, you will always be viewed, by the vast majority, as being a guest - even after many many years and fluent Japanese. And some people are fine with that, and some people can't stand that.
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      Yeah I heard of this, I think I'd be ok with it as this kind of thing would likely happen in China or other asian countries as well. Thanks for the tips. I think this is largely the case for asian countries where the people are more homogeneous. You get much less of this in countries or cities that are much more ethnically and culturally diverse.
    - BossingAround 5y ago
      > Not to be depressing, but you could speak fluent Japanese and you will always be "my foreign friend" or "our foreign coworker" or "the white guy with really good Japanese" to, by and large, even your closest friends. I know what you mean, but I wanted to say that this is true essentially in all parts of the world, with the notable exception of some parts of North America. I think you refer to the subtle changes of behavior that come with the "you're our foreign coworker" that are specific to a lot of Asian cultures and are highly unpleasant, sometimes even racist. That, however, is also present in China, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, etc. Interestingly, in my limited experience, the Philippines is an amazingly open and hearty country without this "insider vs outsider" mentality.
    - timr 5y ago
      I'm of mixed minds on this. The phenomenon is definitely real -- you'll be instinctively treated like a pet by a lot of people. This is frustrating. But I would not go as far as saying "you will always be 'my foreign friend'". Many foreigners in Japan have no marketable skills, and therefore get stuffed into the comfortable role of Foreign Guy, and never leave the role. It's a seductive role: you can get by with pretty minimal language skill and cultural awareness, make enough money to live in a nice place and do fun things, and you don't have to live with any of those annoying rules that drive the natives crazy! So people get to a certain level of cultural proficiency, and stop. Perhaps they teach English (or some other non-Japanese language), and their professional identity becomes...English. They go to foreign-hangout places, and hang out with foreign people. They don't learn the cultural norms beyond tourist-level schtick, and stick out like a sore thumb in any social situation. So yeah, of course those people tend to attract people who fetishize foreigners. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've also met foreigners living and working across the country, in real professional capacities. They have colleagues and friends spouses and lives that I characterize as native as you can get. You're never completely native -- but that's true anywhere.
  - mantas 5y ago
    On top of that, it’s very easy to get stuck in expat community. It’s damn comfy. And it takes a lot of effort to break through. I spent 6 months in Japan a while ago. Working with other gaijins, hanging out with gaijins… My best contact with locals were at gaijin bars. They could speak some English, I could talk to locals. Was it bad? Definitely no. Could I make extra effort to talk to locals more? Yes. But since my goal in life isn’t to cosplay a Japanese…
    - deltaonefour 5y ago
      Yeah, I'm actually ok with this if this is what ends up happening. I'd prefer mingling with the locals, but I get that it may be hard.
kstenerud 5y ago
I didn't speak Japanese when I first moved there. In larger cities (especially Tokyo), there are plenty of people who speak English, so it's generally not a huge problem (although you'll find things easier if you do speak the language). The biggest issues are crowding and racism. Don't expect to get into any role of importance, and don't freak out when you hear "gaijin dame" (no foreigners allowed) in some places, or people sudenly moving to seats and tables further from you. On the other side of the coin, you won't be expected to understand how things work, so they'll be very forgiving (in a condescending way) of social gaffes and the strange way you act (after all, you're a foreigner; they all act that way). Many rules won't apply to you, unless you make an effort to have them apply to you (don't do this). You'll make few (if any) friends of the same gender. You will alway be an outsider. If you can live with this, you'll have a fun and interesting time there. Edit: Also, make friends with some oldtimers in the expat community (as long as they're not the jaded kind). They are a treasure trove of information and help. Edit 2: Don't learn Japanese from someone of the opposite gender (unless they're a trained language teacher). You'll sound ridiculous when you speak otherwise, because men and women use very different words and turns of phrases in many cases (nothing worse than hearing a man say "atashi" or the up-pitch "ne" unless he's in drag). Reading Japanese comic books can be helpful here because they tend towards hyperbole, which makes it easier to pick out the differences. I've found that female artists tend to play with language more than male artists. Edit 3: DO NOT BREAK THE LAW. Getting arrested in Japan is a hellish experience, and prison is even worse. Their justice system is still quite medieval. Quoting a friend of mine: "Japan is the most advanced 3rd world country I've seen."
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Yeah I don't mind being an outsider too much. Thanks, this is a good answer.
  - VRay 5y ago
    A lot of the foreigners living in Tokyo misinterpret tiny bits of nothing as hostility and racism I'm a big guy, sometimes people make space for me on the train or whatever. It isn't racism. I'm a scary and weird looking guy too by local standards, it isn't racism when people gawk a little sometimes. People talk to me like a kid after I completely botch some basic phrase The only racist thing that ever happened to me in years living there was this: I went to a bar with my white friend, and they said "No American" and made an x sign at us. I asked in Japanese "sorry, what was that you said?" and suddenly they welcomed us in.. I guess they just didn't want rowdy dudes who can't speak the language. Definitely not acceptable behavior from them, but not too bad IMO. I get way worse treatment in the USA for being Hispanic than I ever do for being a foreigner in Japan The expat community in Tokyo is kinda obnoxious. There are a lot of lazy, burned out guys who complain about everything
bedobi 5y ago
As others have pointed out, you probably don't want to be working for businesses that are run in the Japanese way, but there are plenty of both expat and native run businesses that aren't. The pay will be low but Tokyo is incredibly cheap so it's not really a problem locally. (but it is a problem in the sense that whatever you save won't be worth much elsewhere if you move back to the states or whatever later years later) It goes without saying your experience will be incomparably better the sooner you learn Japanese, and it's nowhere near as hard as popularly portrayed. Give it a shot, you only live once.
- nonbirithm 5y ago
  I've tried in the past, but didn't hear back from most of the places I applied to. The ones that did respond suggested that I look for a domestic role for the same company because my Japanese wasn't strong enough. I hadn't taken the JLPT at the time but I had been learning the language for 7 years at that point, and I would guess I'm currently at an N3 or N2 level. It does makes sense since they would say that since the JLPT doesn't test for language production, only interpretation. It's likely that I'm just looking in the wrong places, though. About all I understand how to do is to just trawl through public job boards looking for open positions. I still think it would be nice to work in Japan, even if it's only a thing that lasts as long as I can bear it. However, the pandemic has set back so much as visiting Japan as a tourist by several years, so I don't know how that bodes for working there.
tjpnz 5y ago
Pay isn't that bad provided your expectations are reasonable. For reference I'm making more here than I could expect to make in NZ/AU/UK but nothing close to what's on offer in SV.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm in SV. Not FAANG but still.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  You can probably make more in China than Japan as a dev, assuming you have some talent that can’t be found easily locally. Of course, it might be impossible now given how the Chinese government has shifted, but that isn’t because of demand.
  - rootsudo 5y ago
    Not impossible, just depends how much in demand are you. Chinese companies prefer to train their employees to learn and then you have 996/007.
makotobestgirl 5y ago
Living in Tokyo is amazing, but working for a Japanese company as a dev is probably not a great career move if you're relatively young. Software Engineering in Japan is many years behind the rest of the world, the pay is relatively low, and it isn't considered as desirable of a career as it is in other countries. It would be much better if you could find an international or remote company that allows you to live in Japan. Then you can get the best of both worlds. If you don't speak Japanese you probably wouldn't be able to get a job at a Japanese company anyway. > However certain things like culture the language, and making new friends has held me back I think it's really hard to generalize because it's different from person to person. However, I think it's a very different experience if you speak Japanese. Roughly 95%+ (if not more) of the population in Tokyo does not speak English more than a few words. You can certainly get everything done in English, make contracts, find housing, find friends, there is a big enough community, but your social life will be extremely limited if you don't speak Japanese.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I thought about getting a remote role for an SV company while living in Tokyo but the timezone difference is way off.
  - cehrlich 5y ago
    I've thought about trying to get a remote role for a company in AU/NZ and living in Japan that way, then you're "only" off by 1-4 hours. Better be good at waking up early though.
lmm 5y ago
I've lived here for two years and my Japanese is still not great, though getting better all the time. Both the highs and the lows have been bigger than I expected. I've loved the place on the whole but there have definitely been significant downsides too. If you don't like the culture I'd be very cautious about coming here.
rootsudo 5y ago
Don't need to speak to be a dev. Pay is low, rakuten imports devs regularly. Japanese prefer South East Asia/West Europeans vs Americans (North, Central & South.) Learning the language isn't hard either, I passed JLPT N4 within 3 months of just showing up in Tokyo. Max pay would be 40-60K/yr until you get PR &/OR N1/N2. Then it may balloon up a bit but not so much. You should be able to score a free apartment though.
srvmshr 5y ago
I am an expat living in Tokyo for 5 years. My language skills is limited - I haven't given any JLPT. I can understand some conversation but can't speak. I depend on my wife for most official paperwork. I have lived in US, China & India before. I work mostly in MLOps. Life is really not that bad. I would probably never go back to US. I work in niche ML & robotics domain and there is enough scope for growth and making new things. About life in general, what expats miss is that Japanese people forgive you for not knowing the language, but they do take offense at not following the general customs of the place. Being loud, making hand gestures, acting aggressively, talking on the phone in a public space & metro etc are big no-no. Too many foreigners feel unwelcome because they refuse to blend in & want to be the sore thumb sticking out. Once someone blends in their society and manages to have japanese folks invite you in their inner circles, you become as thick as a family member. It all boils down to being respectful of the local way of life. If you live in Japan as a Japanese, (and maybe speaking some Japanese e.g N4 level), life is really comfortable & easy
devilsbabe 5y ago
I've been working for a large US company in Tokyo for several years now. No need to know Japanese for work; I know a lot of people that speak it very poorly (though I wouldn't recommend that if you're staying here long term). The pay is good (~35M JPY/300K USD at L5) but there are very few companies with this level of compensation so the real cost is in the limited opportunities. Like everywhere, there's good and bad parts to living in Tokyo, but I've enjoyed it for the most part. It's friendly, clean, safe, and relatively cheap. On the other hand, there's sometimes discrimination against foreigners (especially in housing) and I don't appreciate how cramped apartments and houses are.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  Are you in FAANG? That level of pay (300k) is also in the higher range for SV. Seems really rare to land such a role given that all the other reported salaries are around 60k. Would love to know if your situation is a fluke or if it's very possible for me to land such a role myself?
  - devilsbabe 5y ago
    The high-paying tech companies in Tokyo that I'm aware of are Google, Amazon, Indeed, Woven Planet, Stripe, and Doordash. Those last two are just starting out here so still have a limited presence. Those are basically your options. Outside of these, TC will go down quickly
MarkSweep 5y ago
Just as an existence proof, I interviewed for a team at Apple in Tokyo. The job was all in English and the team members had varying levels of Japanese language ability. I did not get far enough in the interview process to discuss comp.
leicapowerball 5y ago
I worked there for two years as an engineer for a multinational without speaking Japanese. The primary language of my team was english so the workdays were fine. I eventually was able to speak enough broken Japanese to order at restaurants, cafes, etc but anything beyond that was impossible for me. I know there are a few companies (Google, Facebook) that are hiring engineers in Japan where English is the primary language used. I have heard that there are also some native Japanese companies, like Mercari, where a significant amount of English is used as well. I found that not speaking Japanese was not that big of a deal especially if you live in central Tokyo or one of the suburbs that have a lot of expats. Most businesses that you would likely frequent will have english menus or speak enough broken english to get by. I had a few health problems while I was out there and there are several clinics that have native english support. The thing I found the most difficult about Japan is making Japanese friends. You will always be an outsider and in general Japanese folks just have different expectations when it comes to "work" friends vs "real" friends. You might think you're super close to a colleague from work but in reality you're a total stranger. It's not uncommon to not even know if someone is married or not. On the other hand if you're okay with having mostly expat friends, the community is very welcoming.

bedobi 5y ago

Having lived in Tokyo for years, the elephant in the room is "cars". The whole city is full of pleasant mixed use neighborhoods that are more or less car-free, and centered around public transport hubs that have everything you need around them. People, including unaccompanied children, can and do safely walk and ride bikes everywhere at all hours of the day, including when grocery shopping etc. The world can learn a lot from this. Before anyone chimes in saying "nO tHeRe r cUrS iN tOkYo tOo" - of course there are! The point is the city isn't designed around cars. (and the parts that are are the least pleasant)

makotobestgirl 5y ago
This is honestly the thing that bothers me most about cities the US. Having grown up in Europe, I find many (I'm sure there are exceptions) US cities to be plain ugly and unlivable. The reason is obvious to me. It's that they are designed around cars. It makes such a huge difference.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  US "cities" are just not dense enough to be called cities. This is not America's fault. They have a resource most of the world lacks: space. Too much space and you cannot make a real city.
  - orn688 5y ago
    There's no "cannot", it's a conscious choice - if you have more space than necessary that absolutely does not require that you expand to fill all of it. And in particular this has caused issues because American cities tend towards sprawl, filling up area with low-density housing that requires significantly more infrastructure per capita, and implementing zoning laws to prevent higher-density development even as the population grows, resulting in housing shortages. Not Just Bikes has some excellent content about this, e.g.: https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY https://youtu.be/XfQUOHlAocY
    - hiptobecubic 5y ago

patio11 5y ago

It’s been notably less pleasant for the last two years, for reasons shared with substantially all cities (ex-China, I suppose). Would heartily recommend it otherwise, which would have surprised me when I was younger. In particular, the neighborhoods allow you to pick your vibe, pace, and sense of scale at multiple points along the continuum, so if e.g. the Shibuya scramble crosswalk is not your idea of a good time you can live five minutes away by train and enjoy tree-lined streets and cozy bistros with a bit of outdoor seating instead.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Chinese cities haven’t been doing much better. You have to wear a face mask everywhere, lots of mass people events are curtailed, domestic and international travel is restricted, and your city can go into lockdown at any time (like Xian right now).
njwi332 5y ago
> you can live five minutes away by train and enjoy tree-lined streets and cozy bistros with a bit of outdoor seating instead Do you refer to Daikanyama here? Easily my favourite neighbourhood of Tokyo (so much so that I just bought an apartment to move there in two weeks!)
- mysecretaccount 5y ago
  Love that neighborhood. Congrats on buying a spot there - it has been my dream to do the same.

tjpnz 5y ago

What I've come to appreciate the most is how easy it is to get around by foot. Everywhere I lived previously seemed to have been built with pedestrians as an afterthought. But in Tokyo you can easily tune out with little chance of coming into contact with traffic. Public transport is also great provided you're ok with crowds, although not as big an issue for me now everything's remote.

Prcmaker 5y ago

I had the pleasure of visiting Tokyo years ago, but after having visited many more cities since I only retrospectively realised how great it really was. I've been making plans to head back since 2019 and am excited to see how my experience changes now smartphones are accessible.

ekianjo 5y ago

If you dont have to work there and commute 1h30 each way per day just to avoid living in a too small apartment and instead spend time in a bedtown where there's nothing around your house. Did you capture that, the Economist?

ipiz0618 5y ago

Tokyo, and most big Japan cities, are probably the only cities I could visit regularly without getting bored. Whether it's cuisine, the shops, or the people, it felt like a home away from home. It's surely super crowded in some areas, but you don't have to go there either. There are plenty of areas where you could enjoy a quiet (literally) afternoon sipping a good coffee without having to queue up. Also, it's so damn clean compared to other major cities in the world. Just avoid the train during peak hours, and you'll enjoy every moment staying there.

88840-8855 5y ago
That's the thing. It's a super great place when you are a tourist. I lived there and I saw the bad sides, too. To keep this amazing tidyness, order, extremely high quality of service, people go to their limits - with low pay and low perspectives. We have these "bad" jobs also here, people in those jobs are half-assing them, are rude or just quit. In Japan, at least from my experience, it's the conservative conformity, the anti-individualism, the meat grinding discipline that keep people doing bad jobs at high pace and quality. It's paradox to me why many individualism loving Westerner are going to Japan and are loving it so much. It's a hell for many many people. Many Japanese are racist, sexist, pedophilia was normalized for a very long time. Women are supposed to be housewifes in middle class families, gender is clearly defined. All this is clearly against the western values that i often hear quoted when I hear the same people talking about "China". But Japan seems to be ok for them. Paradox. Just wished people would start thinking about their attitude towards other nations and would develop norms and values that they apply without bias to everyone in order to avoid double standards. Overall, i enjoyed the positive racism in Japan, i was special and I felt it. I experienced racism, too, but i just ignored it. Working in Japan was bad. I also worked in China and felt that the overall package of racism/work/life/society was better for me.
- mrkentutbabi 5y ago
  Most of the things you mentioned here is why I like Japan more han the Western world. To be fair, Japan isn’t perfect. But a lot of things make sense for us. Are you a westerner? It seems that your way of thinking is just different than ours. We value things differently. For example, have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Japanese woman prefer to be in traditional role? The western world has a lot of problems too. And its a choice that the western world makes. We make our choice according to our values. This is what we prefer. Harmony takes the first place. Harmony over diversity. We like diversity too but harmony always comes first. Harmony first, diversity later, when we need it. I can talk a lot about this.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Gee, fuck all these other cities that are all obviously shitholes? I guess?

eyelidlessness 5y ago
I’m gonna laugh my way into the new year with downvotes because I dared to think my city is also pleasant to live in and say so.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  You seem to (inexplicably) entail from «Tokyo [is a] big city that is also pleasant to live in» a number of assumed ideas and unduly conclusions. TFA: > [...] Tokyo is now the world’s largest city, with 37m residents in the metropolitan area and 14m in the city proper. It is also one of the world’s most liveable, with punctual public transport, safe neighbourhoods, clean streets and more restaurants and Michelin stars than any other. In the liveability index of the Economist Intelligence Unit, our sister group, Tokyo comes joint fourth, but its population is larger than the combined populations of the others (Adelaide, Auckland, Osaka and Wellington). “It’s possible to have a liveable city at any scale - Tokyo proves that,” says Gabriel Metcalf, at Committee for Sydney, an Australian think-tank. // It offers lessons to developing cities elsewhere. In 1950, 30% of the world’s population was urban; by 2050, 68% will be [...]
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    The title is The big city that is also pleasant to live in, which seems to pretty clearly imply that others are not. The title on HN last night was Tokio: the big city that is also pleasant to live in, which seems like a moderately reasonable edit by OP, but certainly emphasized my perception of that implication. The title has since been edited to be less accurate but, hey yeah, maybe more representative of the article’s content. There is a lot of anti-urban content out there and I’m fairly used to people who don’t live in mine maligning it anyhow. So yeah, I saw the title and took it to be that with a twist. And I read far too much of that already so I didn’t read further.

ehnto 5y ago

> Tokyo comes joint fourth, but its population is larger than the combined populations of the others (Adelaide, Auckland, Osaka and Wellington). Having lived in Adelaide and visited Toyko, Osaka and a bunch of other Japanese cities, I can take a crack at the difference: Adelaide is a great lifestyle city, if you don't actually want to live in a city, love car enabled lifestyles and the outdoors. Tokyo would be great if you just love city life and have an insatiable desire to discover city culture, and you want to spend most of your time as a pedestrian. You just can't run out of things to discover in Tokyo or Japan in general, and everything is easy to get to in Japan from Tokyo. In Adelaide, you need a car to get out of the burbs, it's very car centric, and because you'll eventually run out of stuff to do in the city since it's quite small, you'll need the car to drive out to new places. Public transport is spotty, or non-existent. Trains aren't too bad, if you move here, move near a train. I would recommend Adelaide if you're pretty content with a median lifestyle, and just want to focus on hobbies, sports and don't mind going to the same handful of cafes every year. I think you'd get more mileage out of Tokyo if you want to dive headfirst into city life and city culture. The other difference is that with a low population, hobby groups in Adelaide are small, and what you love may not even be in Adelaide, getting supplies for things can be difficult. Lots of new things don't make it there due to that issue as well. It can feel a bit dead-end in that way. In Tokyo, if you like it, there's a group for you somewhere, and what you want is probably sold nearby.

bedobi 5y ago
I honestly don't understand how "cities" like Adelaide, Auckland and Wellington keep making these lists of "most liveable cities". Their low populations mean they just don't have much of the things that make cities desirable. (like, lots of culture, lots of diversity, lots of options for dining and activities etc etc) Granted, that can make them comparatively pleasant and peaceful, with good access to outdoors and fresh air, but yeah, it's disingenuous to even include them in a comparison that includes Tokyo, London, New York, what have you. In case anyone thinks this is me being uncharitable, I currently live in Brisbane Australia, which is hardly a cosmopolitan global elite city either, so this isn't me throwing shade, I'm just saying.
- 5y ago

02020202 5y ago

natded 5y ago

It lacks diversity.

xvilka 5y ago
Tokyo is quite diverse, you can see this even as a tourist.
leg100 5y ago
Au contraire. You'll find all sorts of people with different ideas, interests, curiosities, tastes, desires, opinions, vices and virtues; the full gamut of humanity, as you might expect in a metropolis of near 40 million. Yes, certain traits predominate as they do in any culture but if you go looking I'm pretty sure you'll find what you're looking for in Tokyo.
aikinai 5y ago
Tokyo has so many people, it couldn’t avoid being one of the most diverse cities in the world. I guess the stereotype is that all 40M people are salaryman drones and housewives, but clearly that’s not true. If even half are something else, that still leaves tens of millions of people to fill out all the other varieties of people. Whatever your culture or interest is, there will be a place you can find that in Tokyo, probably more so then any other city on Earth.

tluyben2 5y ago

I generally do not like cities, at least not to live in, but I really liked HK, Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Chiang Mai and Bangkok. Tokyo and Melbourne are often mentioned as the greatest and I spent months in both; it really depends what you want, situation you are in, what period in your life etc. I though Melbourne was dead; after midnight the city is just a graveyard. And so was Tokyo. I like cities that are alive: in HK , Shanghai and Bangkok you can do whatever 24/7. It is lively. If I wake up at 3 am craving something or wanting to see a band, chat with someone, I can walk outside and get all of that in many places (not so sure about Shanghai now: that was the longest time ago since I worked there, well in Suzhou, but went to Shanghai all the off time). Even small towns in Asia have that but a mega city like Tokyo was dead; the apartment we were in was in a popular district and friends invited us to craft beer things and such; they shut down at 11pm. In my village (with 100 people) bars are open until 3 am or until the last guest leaves (often after 9 am). It really all depends what you want from a city. As I do not have or want kids, and I work 12 hours a day (by choice!), when I finish, I don't want to hear kitchen is closed etc. No clue why I would pay the money to live in a city then (and I don't as there are no real 24/7 cities that I like in the EU; Berlin but too cold; for the atmosphere I would live there though).

xvilka 5y ago
Moscow is 24/7 city as well. Shanghai is promoting nightlife economy on the city level. Both are insanely pedestrian-friendly with one of the best public transportation infrastructure in the world.
- thruway516 5y ago
  I would like to hear more from people with experience living in Moscow. All of my impressions so far are negative: brutal winters, lawless driving, organized crime - but I think this is due to my relative ignorance. I'm genuinely interested as it's one of the top cities on my travel list
  - xvilka 5y ago
    Well, winters are cold, indeed. Normally between -20C and -30C. I wouldn't call that brutal, though. With central heating it's not a big deal, in my opinion. Lawless driving? For sure not true. Organized crime? I don't think it's significantly higher than in other countries/cities. At least the last 10-20 years.

setgree 5y ago

Coming home from Tokyo to New York in 2018 was depressing. You get so used to living in a dysfunctional society that you forget it's dysfunctional, but getting off the plane at JFK, I was reminded of Biden's comment that our airports are like stepping into a third world country [0]. The next week in New York, I felt like I saw nothing but broken things and lost people. How many places in America: * have good schools and offices within walking distance * have such good public transport that you don't need a car * provide easy access to nature and parks * are affordable to midde-class people? I think the answer might be zero places -- those that meet the first three criteria (Berkeley, parts of NYC, and Seattle) don't meet the fourth. [0] https://abc7ny.com/laguardia-airport-improvements-renovation-at-third-world-country-joe-biden/10046449/ https://abc7ny.com/laguardia-airport-improvements-renovation... -- though technically he was talking about LaGuardia

_xnmw 5y ago
New York is an exception though. It's a place for world's super-rich and the immigrants that keep it running. Austin, Texas is way more livable for the middle class.
- kadomony 5y ago
  Buddy, Austin has garbage public transit and infrastructure. It is not walkable. No one wants to walk in the heat 20 mins to HEB and be accosted by homeless people. It's the latest entry into the shitshow that is garbage American cities.

laurieg 5y ago

Many posters have already mentioned some of the great things about Japanese cities: walkable neighbourhoods, good public transport, life without cars. I agree with all of these. However, you can't get something for nothing. Even in the suburbs there are essentially no gardens (a friend of mine lives way out of town and has a 10m by 10m garden which is enormous and unusual). Houses and apartments are significantly smaller too. I think the tradeoff is worthwhile. You can meet friends at a restaurant instead of at home. You can go to the park instead of play in the garden.

axpy906 5y ago
One more drawback to mention (Having lived in Tokyo a few years) it’s worth pointing out its not exactly kid friendly. I really don’t think most big cities are tbh.
- hylaride 5y ago
  As somebody that lives in the downtown of a large city (Toronto) I disagree, though it will obviously depend on the city. There is so much for kids to do. My kid has access to museums, an aquarium, several parks/playgrounds, children's programs, community centres, etc. All this is within a 15 minute walk.
- wffurr 5y ago
  With a kid or is that just your impression? I used to like living in the city with a kid. Lots of access to interesting places and activities, able to walk to school and playgrounds and such. It’s lost some allure during the pandemic.
  - axpy906 5y ago
    Small children. It can actually work for older ones I think. Many places were shut on and off due restrictions during our time. Definitely makes thing harder.
- aeharding 5y ago
  Postwar American suburban development is terrible for raising children, too. https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98 https://youtu.be/ul_xzyCDT98

greggman3 5y ago

I love Tokyo but I know lots of Japanese people that love suburban America. They love the space. I quick search suggests the average size house in Tokyo is 66sq meters where as in LA it's 167sq meters or nearly 2.5x larger. And that's just LA. My guess is plenty of other suburbia cities the average is even larger. I lived in Tokyo for 15 years. My last place was 54sq meters. I like there are more options in sizes than most cities I think USA and I don't believe that everyone needs a huge place. But, I so am envious of people who have space. Space for workshops, craft rooms, etc. My mom is into Love it or List it, and people have enormous houses with yards in suburbia. I'm jealous even though at the moment I prefer carless city lifestyles

karterk 5y ago
Does Japan have a concept of suburbs? Are houses larger on the outskirts of Tokyo?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  I am not a Japan expert, but my understanding is that houses are generally smaller across the country, because land has always come at a premium due to higher population densities.
  - hylaride 5y ago
    Also japan is mountainous and any extra flat land has traditionally been reserved for making food.
- downrightmike 5y ago
  In the rural towns, houses can be bigger if they are older, but modern design in Japan builds small houses right next to each other and it is easier to build a small tight suburb because of the way infrastructure and land ownership works. So like you'll see a small cluster of a dozen houses all right next to each other in the middle of farm fields.
- bjowen 5y ago

twobitshifter 5y ago

It’s interesting to look at Tokyo from space, what you’ll see is a type of sprawl but it’s an dense urban sprawl. In the us we have taken to trying to constrain growth to small specific areas to drive up density, but that wasn’t needed in Tokyo to achieve density. It tells me that in some ways our attempts at urban planning through zoning have been ineffective. The reason why a location 5 miles from a city center can only house a single level big box store isn’t due to cars or the great expanse of America. That piece of property could be put to better use if people were able to build as they do in Tokyo. On the other hand, if we aspire to be like Tokyo, we might consider what the Tokyo area originally looked like as a natural environment and how the unchecked growth in density turned most everything to concrete.

Giorgi 5y ago

And also has mafia problems where police will not do anything.

anm89 5y ago

It is unbelievable how true this is . Ive almost got some sort of trauma where living in cities gives me a lot of anxiety and Tokyo is the only exception

muybasado 5y ago

niklaslogren 5y ago

https://archive.fo/CfoWe https://archive.fo/CfoWe

temp8964 5y ago

This kind of thing comes back once a while. You know what? Japan has extremely low birth rate! And very high suicide rate! No. It’s not a pleasant place to live. Not any big city, for a family with 2+ kids.

kgin 5y ago
You attribute the birth rate and suicide rate to the urban planning?

lbrito 5y ago

Someone commented that people hate each other in the US more than elsewhere, thus need more space apart from other people. This made me think: how does this supposed US hatred for itself compare with European hatred for "the other"? Living in Moscow I heard from a German girl that she was scorned for being German; in another situation I heard form a Russian man that he felt unwelcome in Germany for being German. I'm not even getting into ancient Spain x Portugal, Poland x Germany kind of enmities.

kadomony 5y ago

Going to Tokyo once was enough to make me hate American cities. We got things so wrong, and we invested so heavily into the wrong infrastructure that we'll never change.