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I see this take about Japan all the time and do not understand it. No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? Rural areas might be quiet for sheer low po

I see this take about Japan all the time and do not understand it. No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? Rural areas might be quiet for sheer low population density, but the cities are disgusting. PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits and absolutely no one on the local news was talking about it. Every morning I see pregnant and new mothers with infants or small children squeezing between belching diesel trucks, relentless car traffic, construction sites and smokers areas and wonder what the cost of all of this will be. This is not a model for the future. It’s a relic.

Grimburger 3y ago
> but the cities are disgusting Which non-Japanese cities are you comparing it to here?
- darkteflon 3y ago
  Take your pick. There’s no special magic to Japanese cities. They’re dominated by traffic and construction, full stop. The air is filthy.
  - ehnto 3y ago
    Well not all Japanese cities are the same, and it is unfair to categorize a megalopolis like Tokyo as one thing or another as it's too varied for that. While Tokyo does have no shortage of highways and cars they do have plenty of mixed zone medium density, walkable areas that are free from car noise. That is not a feature of any part of most US cities except maybe the CBD. It is also much more uncommon to find stroads in Japanese cities, while a stroad is the default for many western cities.
    - darkteflon 3y ago
      Sure, smaller cities are better than big cities. Less dense cities are better than denser cities. All else held equal. The neighbourhoods you’re referring to - walkable areas free from car noise - are open to the wealthy only. The absolute vast majority of people in Tokyo live with constant traffic noise and terrible air quality. Not to mention cramped living conditions.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        It is really, really hard to compare metro areas without actually having lived there. Tourist areas are always by definition in nicer parts of the city because the tourists pay for it. And if you have enough money most cities have nice parts. But how does the “average” working stiff live?
        darkteflon 3y ago
        It definitely is difficult, thank you. It also seems to me to be of limited value unless you’re specifically trying to measure the effect of different policies. Let’s just do what we can to improve air quality everywhere. We know diesel bans work, we know EVs work, we know congestion pricing works. Let’s just do it - especially for our kids. Doesn’t seem particularly controversial to me.
  - inconceivable 3y ago
    [flagged]
noduerme 3y ago
> and wonder what the cost of all of this will be Likely the same extended lifespan that's been prevalent in Japan over the past century of smoking, diesel and construction (along with the occasional nuclear catastrophe). Humans are apparently more ruggedized than they look on paper.
- darkteflon 3y ago
  And luckily, the only relevant measure of quality of life is the number of years lived, isn’t it.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    Sarcasm isn't a cost.
- pdimitar 3y ago
  You are just one sentence away from saying "human quality of life doesn't matter, we must think of the economy". Shortness of breath is something doctors report as a more and more common symptom of city dwellers. Not reported on the news because nobody -- apparently you included -- cares, but I've been to doctors lately, and they complained that the lung and heart doctors are overbooked lately while the others have a normal load.
  - kqr 3y ago
    This could also be because people don't go out as much - perhaps for fear of pollution. Generally, it takes a lot of pollution to counter the positive health effects of active commuting. It was a while since I did the research, but someone estimated that you need to cycle for more than sixteen hours per day for the pollution to outweigh the cardio benefits in the 90th percentile of cities ordered by pollution. There was no city for which any mount of cycling would have made you worse off. Granted, walking is probably slightly lower in intensity, but still.
    - pdimitar 3y ago
rtpg 3y ago
> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits and absolutely no one on the local news was talking about it What are you talking about? Localities sent a smog alert, made announcements on the speaker, and there was a whole thing. It was a particularly hot day as well. I don’t have that many reference points to be fair, but almost every time I’ve checked general air quality (at least according to the first site that describes AQI) for Paris has always been worse than Tokyo. Of course things can be massively improved. There is a lot of noise pollution. But the conversations are relative to other places. My reference points are limited but on points like air pollution or smoking other major cities fare worse IMO. Though this is all super subjective, and even within a city various parts of it have a vastly different vibe.
- kqr 3y ago
  Air quality also wildly varies between streets, so it's hard to compare blindly across cities. Walking for just a minute down a side street can massively improve air quality compared to the main street.
- darkteflon 3y ago
  It’s been like this for days, it will continue into next week. We had no announcements where I am, none of the news broadcasts I checked (and I checked a few) mentioned it. The Tokyo metro site wouldn’t even load on my phone. Glad you got a heads up. Don’t really care what Paris is like, tbh. Shit air is shit air. Saying it’s shitter somewhere else isn’t super compelling. The whole point of my original comment was that people elevate Japanese cities in ways they don’t deserve.
  - SapporoChris 3y ago
    https://www.iqair.com/japan/tokyo https://www.iqair.com/japan/tokyo Site has Historic air quality graph for Tokyo and the daily chart shows the air quality is very good.
    - darkteflon 3y ago
      EDIT: To clarify, if you checked accuweather.com yesterday morning you would’ve seen a pollution map flooded red, AQI 142. Yep I know - but did you check how many monitoring sites they use and where they’re placed? It’s not representative of the actual experience of living here. If you’re walking, or cycling, you’re constantly in extreme close proximity to tailpipe emissions from cars and diesel trucks. The city also famously has lots of construction activity, almost always also belching diesel.
badpun 3y ago
> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits and absolutely no one on the local news was talking about it. According to [1], yesterday's peak of PM2.5 (not the 24 hour average) in Tokyo was at 22 µg/m3, whereas according to [2], the WHO's (extremely strict) limit for 24 hour average is set at 15 µg/m3. Where did you get your data from? [1] https://www.aqi.in/dashboard/Japan/tokyo https://www.aqi.in/dashboard/Japan/tokyo [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(ou...
- darkteflon 3y ago
  accuweather.com. Yesterday morning the AQI was 142. I snapped a photo of it.
  - duckmysick 3y ago
    This is the air quality page for Tokyo on accuweather.com https://www.accuweather.com/en/jp/tokyo/226396/air-quality-index/226396 https://www.accuweather.com/en/jp/tokyo/226396/air-quality-i... Clicking on the Learn more from Plume Labs takes you to the air quality data source. https://air.plumelabs.com/air-quality-in-Tokyo-7Lj5 https://air.plumelabs.com/air-quality-in-Tokyo-7Lj5 You can see graphs with the tabs named Live, Week, Month, Year. We can check past data there. The weekly graph shows 72 AQI on May 18th. The yearly graph shows the annual average of 39 AQI. Can you confirm that you see the same data?
    - darkteflon 3y ago
      Is that the 24 hour average? I literally have photos on my phone from Thursday morning showing AQI 142 and a Tokyo map soaked in pink and red. I snapped them to send to my wife, who was planning to take the kids to the park. It was also obvious to anyone with a functioning noise on their face. Not sure what to tell you.
      - duckmysick 3y ago
        It's the value taken at Thu 18 May 01:50PM. It's an interactive chart. The weekly version shows readings every couple minutes.
sparsely 3y ago
Japanese cities are a lot quieter and cleaner than most much less dense western ones (e.g. London).
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits Is it worse than SA, London or any other megacity of the world?
- pdimitar 3y ago
  Who cares? Everybody wants clean air, they just live with the bad one because the big city pays well (though when you correct it for costs of living, it gets muddier).
- darkteflon 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    Huh? You are claiming Tokyo is shit, so is there a city of conparable size that does better? Or are you just demanding something impossible?
    - darkteflon 3y ago
      What’s impossible about it? Where are the bans on diesel trucks in the city centre? Where are the zero emissions vehicles visible in just about every other metropolis? Where are the congestion charges? Bike lanes? Tree cover? This is a political problem and as long as the Japanese auto lobby has the LDP in their pocket, we who live here live the consequences.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        You’re saying other cities’ air quality experience is totally irrelevant in some posts and then making a direct comparison to policies that other cities have implemented in this post. It doesn’t seem a consistent position to me. IMO, what other cities do (and the results they get) is relevant when discussing what’s good, bad, or practically possible.
Barrin92 3y ago
>No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s. The country has taken some of the worst cues from the US. Many cities like Tokyo are 75% suburban, single home, it's in fact the largest suburban region on the planet. The number of cars in the country is much higher than in the rest of Asia and many cities are extraordinarily sprawlish. From the air Tokyo literally just looks like a sort of denser LA (https://i.redd.it/mghcpc5xvt761.jpg https://i.redd.it/mghcpc5xvt761.jpg) If people are looking inspiration in Asia, Singapore is a much better place to look at, it deliberately designed around green spaces and avoidance of cars.
- david-gpu 3y ago
  >> No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? > As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s. Yes, I have visited Japan several times, multiple cities. My wife is Japanese. But don't let that stop you. Please, continue.
  - darkteflon 3y ago
    Okay, well, more than 20 years living here and I reckon the air quality is terrible and that in 2023 it should be a much higher priority than it is. I have to raise my kids here. I’m sure the total absence of zero emissions vehicle options has absolutely nothing to do with the political influence of the Japanese automotive lobby.
    - david-gpu 3y ago
      Somebody else in the thread showed you actual objective data on air pollution and you brushed it off. In Japan a substantial majority of people commute by transit, mostly by rail. How would air pollution be affected if as many people commuted by car as they typically do in North America? Cars are the subject of this post.
po 3y ago
I just walked out onto my 3rd floor balcony in Tokyo at 8:30pm and my watch says it is 38dB. I can hear some light car traffic in the distance. I live about a 20 minute walk to Shibuya crossing, so not exactly rural. I also live about 100m from Yamatedori which is a giant arterial road. I used to live in NYC. Tokyo is a very quiet city. Not all parts for sure... you can have an apartment by a train crossing or they might build a highway outside your 6th floor window, but I would say that most of the parts where people live is pretty quiet.
- ATMLOTTOBEER 3y ago
  This was my experience as well visiting Tokyo as someone who lives in nyc
- DrBazza 3y ago
  Are there trees and soft planting at street level? NYC is very plant bare by comparison to London for example. And they absorb a lot of the noise. Hard surfaces just reflect and amplify the noise.
  - po 3y ago
    Yes. Tokyo has a lot of shrubs and small trees planted on any available median or unused sidewalk space throughout the city. I think that helps. There is also some small effort put in to plant ivy or other climbing plants on things like highway ramps.
johnwalkr 3y ago
This is a hilariously misleading take. Are you comparing Tokyo to a place with stroads or to living on a farm? I lived in Tokyo for 6 years. Yeah there’s a lot of traffic in Tokyo but the highways are underground or elevated and it’s a pedestrian paradise At least that mother and children can walk to interesting things instead of drive everywhere. And in the neighborhood they live in, there are likely quiet streets and a grocery store within blocks. Even where there are large roads, like near Shibuya station, there’s no street parking and cars are passing through, not driving across the sidewalk to every storefront. Pedestrians definitely come first. The parkades are often attended to direct traffic and pedestrians. I can’t comment on yesterday but PM2.5 levels are often on the news. Construction sites? Yeah, it’s a city. But most construction is fast. I now live in a small But growing European city and part of the sidewalk downtown has been closed down for three years for ongoing demolition of a building. Now it looks like construction is just starting. And this is for a 5 or 6 stores building. Smoking areas outside of stations are gross in Japan but it’s rude or forbidden to smoke in crowded areas. In Europe people smoke on the train platform, at the bus stop and right outside of every restaurant. I did think of one thing that is loud and annoying in Tokyo though: 50cc scooters. Making those quiet ought to be low hanging fruit.
- darkteflon 3y ago
  It’s not misleading at all. The best part of Tokyo’s urban design are its mixed-used neighbourhoods and extensive public transport network. As you say, that makes it great for walking and cycling. In theory. In practice, when combined with the high density, it means that people are spending a lot of time outside, unprotected, in very close proximity to the tailpipe emissions from large volumes (often 4 or 6-lanes) of gasoline and diesel-burning trucks and cars. Often with narrow sidewalks or no sidewalks at all. They shop along the main road, their kids’ school is on the main road, their workplaces, gyms, dry cleaners, station, etc. Lol at the people in this thread chiming in from their 3rd floor balconies in Moto-Azabu Hills. The absolute vast majority of people living in Tokyo are breathing trash air day in day out. It’s reprehensible. They need to ban diesel trucks immediately, and they need to actively encourage people to switch to EVs.
  - 3y ago
fomine3 3y ago
As you can see, PM2.5 (and sands) are coming from China. If most of them are locally generated, it should be stable so people don't need forecast. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/taiki/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/taiki/ https://tenki.jp/pm25/ https://tenki.jp/pm25/ https://tenki.jp/forecaster/t_yoshida/2023/05/20/23296.html https://tenki.jp/forecaster/t_yoshida/2023/05/20/23296.html

Grimburger 3y ago

> but the cities are disgusting Which non-Japanese cities are you comparing it to here?

darkteflon 3y ago
Take your pick. There’s no special magic to Japanese cities. They’re dominated by traffic and construction, full stop. The air is filthy.
- ehnto 3y ago
  Well not all Japanese cities are the same, and it is unfair to categorize a megalopolis like Tokyo as one thing or another as it's too varied for that. While Tokyo does have no shortage of highways and cars they do have plenty of mixed zone medium density, walkable areas that are free from car noise. That is not a feature of any part of most US cities except maybe the CBD. It is also much more uncommon to find stroads in Japanese cities, while a stroad is the default for many western cities.
  - darkteflon 3y ago
    Sure, smaller cities are better than big cities. Less dense cities are better than denser cities. All else held equal. The neighbourhoods you’re referring to - walkable areas free from car noise - are open to the wealthy only. The absolute vast majority of people in Tokyo live with constant traffic noise and terrible air quality. Not to mention cramped living conditions.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It is really, really hard to compare metro areas without actually having lived there. Tourist areas are always by definition in nicer parts of the city because the tourists pay for it. And if you have enough money most cities have nice parts. But how does the “average” working stiff live?
      - darkteflon 3y ago
        It definitely is difficult, thank you. It also seems to me to be of limited value unless you’re specifically trying to measure the effect of different policies. Let’s just do what we can to improve air quality everywhere. We know diesel bans work, we know EVs work, we know congestion pricing works. Let’s just do it - especially for our kids. Doesn’t seem particularly controversial to me.
- inconceivable 3y ago
  [flagged]

noduerme 3y ago

> and wonder what the cost of all of this will be Likely the same extended lifespan that's been prevalent in Japan over the past century of smoking, diesel and construction (along with the occasional nuclear catastrophe). Humans are apparently more ruggedized than they look on paper.

darkteflon 3y ago
And luckily, the only relevant measure of quality of life is the number of years lived, isn’t it.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  Sarcasm isn't a cost.
pdimitar 3y ago
You are just one sentence away from saying "human quality of life doesn't matter, we must think of the economy". Shortness of breath is something doctors report as a more and more common symptom of city dwellers. Not reported on the news because nobody -- apparently you included -- cares, but I've been to doctors lately, and they complained that the lung and heart doctors are overbooked lately while the others have a normal load.
- kqr 3y ago
  This could also be because people don't go out as much - perhaps for fear of pollution. Generally, it takes a lot of pollution to counter the positive health effects of active commuting. It was a while since I did the research, but someone estimated that you need to cycle for more than sixteen hours per day for the pollution to outweigh the cardio benefits in the 90th percentile of cities ordered by pollution. There was no city for which any mount of cycling would have made you worse off. Granted, walking is probably slightly lower in intensity, but still.
  - pdimitar 3y ago

rtpg 3y ago

> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits and absolutely no one on the local news was talking about it What are you talking about? Localities sent a smog alert, made announcements on the speaker, and there was a whole thing. It was a particularly hot day as well. I don’t have that many reference points to be fair, but almost every time I’ve checked general air quality (at least according to the first site that describes AQI) for Paris has always been worse than Tokyo. Of course things can be massively improved. There is a lot of noise pollution. But the conversations are relative to other places. My reference points are limited but on points like air pollution or smoking other major cities fare worse IMO. Though this is all super subjective, and even within a city various parts of it have a vastly different vibe.

kqr 3y ago
Air quality also wildly varies between streets, so it's hard to compare blindly across cities. Walking for just a minute down a side street can massively improve air quality compared to the main street.
darkteflon 3y ago
It’s been like this for days, it will continue into next week. We had no announcements where I am, none of the news broadcasts I checked (and I checked a few) mentioned it. The Tokyo metro site wouldn’t even load on my phone. Glad you got a heads up. Don’t really care what Paris is like, tbh. Shit air is shit air. Saying it’s shitter somewhere else isn’t super compelling. The whole point of my original comment was that people elevate Japanese cities in ways they don’t deserve.
- SapporoChris 3y ago
  https://www.iqair.com/japan/tokyo https://www.iqair.com/japan/tokyo Site has Historic air quality graph for Tokyo and the daily chart shows the air quality is very good.
  - darkteflon 3y ago
    EDIT: To clarify, if you checked accuweather.com yesterday morning you would’ve seen a pollution map flooded red, AQI 142. Yep I know - but did you check how many monitoring sites they use and where they’re placed? It’s not representative of the actual experience of living here. If you’re walking, or cycling, you’re constantly in extreme close proximity to tailpipe emissions from cars and diesel trucks. The city also famously has lots of construction activity, almost always also belching diesel.

badpun 3y ago

> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits and absolutely no one on the local news was talking about it. According to [1], yesterday's peak of PM2.5 (not the 24 hour average) in Tokyo was at 22 µg/m3, whereas according to [2], the WHO's (extremely strict) limit for 24 hour average is set at 15 µg/m3. Where did you get your data from? [1] https://www.aqi.in/dashboard/Japan/tokyo https://www.aqi.in/dashboard/Japan/tokyo [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(ou...

darkteflon 3y ago
accuweather.com. Yesterday morning the AQI was 142. I snapped a photo of it.
- duckmysick 3y ago
  This is the air quality page for Tokyo on accuweather.com https://www.accuweather.com/en/jp/tokyo/226396/air-quality-index/226396 https://www.accuweather.com/en/jp/tokyo/226396/air-quality-i... Clicking on the Learn more from Plume Labs takes you to the air quality data source. https://air.plumelabs.com/air-quality-in-Tokyo-7Lj5 https://air.plumelabs.com/air-quality-in-Tokyo-7Lj5 You can see graphs with the tabs named Live, Week, Month, Year. We can check past data there. The weekly graph shows 72 AQI on May 18th. The yearly graph shows the annual average of 39 AQI. Can you confirm that you see the same data?
  - darkteflon 3y ago
    Is that the 24 hour average? I literally have photos on my phone from Thursday morning showing AQI 142 and a Tokyo map soaked in pink and red. I snapped them to send to my wife, who was planning to take the kids to the park. It was also obvious to anyone with a functioning noise on their face. Not sure what to tell you.
    - duckmysick 3y ago
      It's the value taken at Thu 18 May 01:50PM. It's an interactive chart. The weekly version shows readings every couple minutes.

sparsely 3y ago

Japanese cities are a lot quieter and cleaner than most much less dense western ones (e.g. London).

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> PM2.5 levels in Tokyo yesterday were like 6x WHO limits Is it worse than SA, London or any other megacity of the world?

pdimitar 3y ago
Who cares? Everybody wants clean air, they just live with the bad one because the big city pays well (though when you correct it for costs of living, it gets muddier).
darkteflon 3y ago
[flagged]
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  Huh? You are claiming Tokyo is shit, so is there a city of conparable size that does better? Or are you just demanding something impossible?
  - darkteflon 3y ago
    What’s impossible about it? Where are the bans on diesel trucks in the city centre? Where are the zero emissions vehicles visible in just about every other metropolis? Where are the congestion charges? Bike lanes? Tree cover? This is a political problem and as long as the Japanese auto lobby has the LDP in their pocket, we who live here live the consequences.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      You’re saying other cities’ air quality experience is totally irrelevant in some posts and then making a direct comparison to policies that other cities have implemented in this post. It doesn’t seem a consistent position to me. IMO, what other cities do (and the results they get) is relevant when discussing what’s good, bad, or practically possible.

Barrin92 3y ago

>No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s. The country has taken some of the worst cues from the US. Many cities like Tokyo are 75% suburban, single home, it's in fact the largest suburban region on the planet. The number of cars in the country is much higher than in the rest of Asia and many cities are extraordinarily sprawlish. From the air Tokyo literally just looks like a sort of denser LA (https://i.redd.it/mghcpc5xvt761.jpg https://i.redd.it/mghcpc5xvt761.jpg) If people are looking inspiration in Asia, Singapore is a much better place to look at, it deliberately designed around green spaces and avoidance of cars.

david-gpu 3y ago
>> No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan? > As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s. Yes, I have visited Japan several times, multiple cities. My wife is Japanese. But don't let that stop you. Please, continue.
- darkteflon 3y ago
  Okay, well, more than 20 years living here and I reckon the air quality is terrible and that in 2023 it should be a much higher priority than it is. I have to raise my kids here. I’m sure the total absence of zero emissions vehicle options has absolutely nothing to do with the political influence of the Japanese automotive lobby.
  - david-gpu 3y ago
    Somebody else in the thread showed you actual objective data on air pollution and you brushed it off. In Japan a substantial majority of people commute by transit, mostly by rail. How would air pollution be affected if as many people commuted by car as they typically do in North America? Cars are the subject of this post.

po 3y ago

I just walked out onto my 3rd floor balcony in Tokyo at 8:30pm and my watch says it is 38dB. I can hear some light car traffic in the distance. I live about a 20 minute walk to Shibuya crossing, so not exactly rural. I also live about 100m from Yamatedori which is a giant arterial road. I used to live in NYC. Tokyo is a very quiet city. Not all parts for sure... you can have an apartment by a train crossing or they might build a highway outside your 6th floor window, but I would say that most of the parts where people live is pretty quiet.

ATMLOTTOBEER 3y ago
This was my experience as well visiting Tokyo as someone who lives in nyc
DrBazza 3y ago
Are there trees and soft planting at street level? NYC is very plant bare by comparison to London for example. And they absorb a lot of the noise. Hard surfaces just reflect and amplify the noise.
- po 3y ago
  Yes. Tokyo has a lot of shrubs and small trees planted on any available median or unused sidewalk space throughout the city. I think that helps. There is also some small effort put in to plant ivy or other climbing plants on things like highway ramps.

johnwalkr 3y ago

This is a hilariously misleading take. Are you comparing Tokyo to a place with stroads or to living on a farm? I lived in Tokyo for 6 years. Yeah there’s a lot of traffic in Tokyo but the highways are underground or elevated and it’s a pedestrian paradise At least that mother and children can walk to interesting things instead of drive everywhere. And in the neighborhood they live in, there are likely quiet streets and a grocery store within blocks. Even where there are large roads, like near Shibuya station, there’s no street parking and cars are passing through, not driving across the sidewalk to every storefront. Pedestrians definitely come first. The parkades are often attended to direct traffic and pedestrians. I can’t comment on yesterday but PM2.5 levels are often on the news. Construction sites? Yeah, it’s a city. But most construction is fast. I now live in a small But growing European city and part of the sidewalk downtown has been closed down for three years for ongoing demolition of a building. Now it looks like construction is just starting. And this is for a 5 or 6 stores building. Smoking areas outside of stations are gross in Japan but it’s rude or forbidden to smoke in crowded areas. In Europe people smoke on the train platform, at the bus stop and right outside of every restaurant. I did think of one thing that is loud and annoying in Tokyo though: 50cc scooters. Making those quiet ought to be low hanging fruit.

darkteflon 3y ago
It’s not misleading at all. The best part of Tokyo’s urban design are its mixed-used neighbourhoods and extensive public transport network. As you say, that makes it great for walking and cycling. In theory. In practice, when combined with the high density, it means that people are spending a lot of time outside, unprotected, in very close proximity to the tailpipe emissions from large volumes (often 4 or 6-lanes) of gasoline and diesel-burning trucks and cars. Often with narrow sidewalks or no sidewalks at all. They shop along the main road, their kids’ school is on the main road, their workplaces, gyms, dry cleaners, station, etc. Lol at the people in this thread chiming in from their 3rd floor balconies in Moto-Azabu Hills. The absolute vast majority of people living in Tokyo are breathing trash air day in day out. It’s reprehensible. They need to ban diesel trucks immediately, and they need to actively encourage people to switch to EVs.
- 3y ago

fomine3 3y ago

As you can see, PM2.5 (and sands) are coming from China. If most of them are locally generated, it should be stable so people don't need forecast. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/taiki/ https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/taiki/ https://tenki.jp/pm25/ https://tenki.jp/pm25/ https://tenki.jp/forecaster/t_yoshida/2023/05/20/23296.html https://tenki.jp/forecaster/t_yoshida/2023/05/20/23296.html