Urban design and mental health in Tokyo

http://www.urbandesignmentalhealth.com/journal-3---tokyo-case-study.html

by blacksmythe • 9 years ago

51 19 9 years ago

Animats• 9 years ago

The enthusiasm for superblocks is interesting. That's been a disaster in US city planning. It's associated with housing projects. Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan, which is a huge, expensive apartment complex, gets higher rents for apartments which face the "outside" streets than for those which face the interior open space.

lucideer3• 9 years ago

This is a very common observation in my experience, but I strongly suspect it's misplaced. My guess is that there are other factors that cause housing projects to be "disastrous", and the correlation with superblocks is either coincidental, or - more likely - connected to institutional biases.

If you look at a lot of superblocks in Nordic countries, they're extremely successful, but they also have a few not-so-great superblocks dotted here and there as well.

I think there's probably examples of both to be found ("good" and "bad" superblocks) in every country, with just the ratio varying per-country.

I'd be interested to see research though as the above is just anecdotal/intuition.

nihonde2• 9 years ago

My theory, having lived in New York and Japanese cities with lots of superblock developments, is that everything depends on how well the residents maintain the site.

0x4f3759df• 9 years ago

If you would like to see a housing project deteriorate there's a documentary on Amazon Prime called 'The Pruitt Igoe Myth'. tdlr; It was low income so the rents were not sustaining the maintenance costs, and the city chose not to allocate appropriate funds to that effect (some racism was in play here).

rtpg• 9 years ago

I think "proper" superblocks in Tokyo tend to suffer from similar issues as in other cities. You end up building these huge buildings and it all feels a bit claustrophobic

But almost all the roads in Tokyo have the big superblock advantage: pedestrian first.

While there's a bunch of big avenues, basically no smaller roads have sidewalks. Instead people just walk "on the road" and cars drive slowly. Lots of roads are basically "1.5 cars" wide too. This helps with making denser communities without needing huge appartement buildings.

Loads of areas of Tokyo are "just " 2-4 story buildings. But work of small details mean you can end up being pretty dense anyways.

pouetpouet• 9 years ago

depends on what the definition of superblock is. Superblocks in american are a barrier to walking cycling. In tokyo it may be more like the initiative in Barcelona [1] where there are streets inside the superblock, but not for through vehicular traffic. It's important to have a highly connected fine grained network of streets for pedestrians and cyclists.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-r...

woliveirajr• 9 years ago

Brasilia was built considering superblocks, and as the city grew, the "all you need will be near you" concept collapsed, as people need to move to work and public transportation is far from being adequate.

robzyb• 9 years ago

I saw Layla (the director of UDMH) give an excellent presentation at PechaKucha Tokyo last month.

I look forward to flicking through this document.

kaybe• 9 years ago

"People in Tokyo sleep, on average, 5 hours and half at home, (and they add to that their sleep during the commuting time in a train.)"

That does not sound healthy at all. How does this work?

andy_ppp• 9 years ago

Everyone arched forward and snores, it’s impressive really.

lj3• 9 years ago

I did this for a few years when I lived in San Mateo and worked in Mill Valley. It's not healthy, nor is it pleasant. I was robbed in my sleep more than once.

Raphmedia• 9 years ago

Not from Japan but one on the things I miss the most now that I have a car is being able to sleep around 5 hours and catch up during commute.

It's crazy how good you get at falling asleep instantly and how you get a "my stop is at the right corner, I need to wake up right now" sixth sense.

Now I require more sleep and commute makes me more tired when I get to work and back home.

Neeek• 9 years ago

I agree.

I developed this habit in highschool but no one else I know seems to have picked it up, interesting to see it discussed here :) I get VERY sleepy whenever I'm on a bus now, even 7 years of car commuting later.

mercurysmessage2• 9 years ago

That Sumida River drawing is a nice touch. When I used to work in Tokyo I'd often go to the river at lunch, it's very relaxing and I love being near water.

mc32• 9 years ago

They should add more trees. Sometimes you just need a bit of shade while you lunch or nap.

mercurysmessage2• 9 years ago

Yea more trees would be nice. The area I frequented had a nice bridge I'd use for shade haha

Urban design and mental health in Tokyo

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