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If you look at Japan, which generally has much looser zoning practices, it's managed to do much, much, better. It has sprawl and excess road construction too,
by snogglethorpe 12y ago
If you look at Japan, which generally has much looser zoning practices, it's managed to do much, much, better. It has sprawl and excess road construction too, but the sprawl is much more transit-oriented, and Japan has generally done a far better job avoiding the worst stupidities of U.S. post-war development.
I'm sure there are many interacting reason for this, e.g. Japan's poverty in the decades after the war meant that cars weren't even a possibility for most people, and the sheer population of cities like Tokyo meant that mass car usage wouldn't be remotely practical even if everybody could afford a car.
But surely China has many huge cities as well, and the average citizen still isn't very rich...
My guess is that in Japan, developers just followed the money and did what's practical, and that meant building transit and transit-oriented housing. In China, on the other hand, with its strong centralized control, developers are probably more likely to be influenced by what the fat cats in the party hierarchy want—which is more roads for their Mercedes, and more "western-like" development which they associate with wealth and privilege—even if that isn't so sensible according to the situation on the ground (and isn't so good for the average citizen, or for the future)...
- new299 12y agoI guess it helps that one of the major transit operators in Tokyo is also a land developer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyu_Corporation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyu_Corporation
- kryptiskt 12y agoJapan may have handled the tactics well, but their strategy sucks. Namely the "centralize ALL the things to Tokyo" idea. Like such a metropolis actually needs policy help to keep ahead of Kansai.
- eloisant 12y agoIt may also be because in Japan space is very constrained, while China is a huge country with a lot available space - just like US.
- snogglethorpe 12y agoI don't think space is really such a factor at the scale of a single city in many cases. Although China has a lot more land should it choose to build new cities or whatever, what matters more for existing cities is land in close proximity to them (to the point where transportation becomes the limiting factor). Tokyo, for instance, has plenty of relatively empty space around it even today; it isn't severely geographically constrained in the same way that Hong Kong or Manhattan are.
- seanmcdirmid 12y agoLots of cities are constrained. Many places in China are mostly mountains (they are getting around this by blowing up the mountains).
- WildUtah 12y agoChina has eleven times the population of Japan and five times the habitable area. Not far in from the coast, China turns into 2500m+ mountains with Siberian winters and few flat places. Then comes Tibet, the Mongolian desert, and the Gobi desert. None of those places will support cities, and most are dominated by non-Chinese people like Uigurs, Tibetans, Mongolians, and such. The vast majority of China on the map will never be Chinese and never support a major city.