Emergent Tokyo: Designing the spontaneous city

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-21/tokyo-s-urban-planning-secrets-revealed-in-new-book

by jseliger • 4 years ago

84 77 4 years ago

prottog3• 4 years ago

Sounds like the biggest factor is the lack of onerous American-style zoning regulations, which permits interesting uses of real estate to emerge intermingled with each other; as opposed to the suburban American standard of "everyone must live here in this zone, drive to this other zone to work, then drive to this other zone to grocery shop".

chazeon• 4 years ago

I think Jane Jacobs’s the Life and Death of Great American Cities is a major piece against these zoning laws. Tokyo seems to serve as a great example although it is not an American city.

davidw4• 4 years ago

"Arbitrary Lines" is a succinct modern take on why we should eliminate zoning in the US and what we should replace it with

https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines

lazyant• 4 years ago

Texas has less zoning regulations and it resulted in more roads, parking lots and dependency of the car.

ch4s3• 4 years ago

Texas is almost twice the size of Japan and mostly flat. It’s also not full of medieval cities with their own vernacular architecture.

natrius• 4 years ago

Houston is the only major Texas city without zoning, and Houston still has plenty of parking requirements. As a result, both housing for people and housing for cars is really cheap. At this rate, Houston is going to figure out how to fix its planning mistakes of the past much faster than more regulated cities are going to decide to build enough housing for the people who want to live there. I'd never bet against Houston, or Texas in general.

How about we ease up on both zoning restrictions and parking requirements?

Schiendelman4• 4 years ago

Keep in mind that zoning has almost nothing to do with road placement - those decisions are made by different levels of government, especially for major roads and highways.

And as another commenter mentioned, only Houston has "no zoning", and they have most of the regulations that are normally in zoning code in other cities anyway.

criddell• 4 years ago

I think part of that is due to climate. Houston in the summer is not a place where I’m going to bike or walk much in the summer. Cars make that city work.

bmitc10• 4 years ago

There’s a very quirky and quietly hilarious book called Made in Tokyo that covers a sort of dual use or spliced architecture one readily finds in Tokyo. Places like a shopping mall under a highway or tennis courts on top of a warehouse. (The book is both in Japanese and English.)

https://www.amazon.com/Made-Tokyo-Guide-Junzo-Kuroda/dp/4306...

From the introduction:

The buildings we were attracted to were ones giving a priority to stubborn honesty in response to their surroundings and programmatic requirements, without insisting on architectural aesthetic and form. We decided to call them “Da-me Architecture” (no-good architecture), with all our love and disdain.

milkytron2• 4 years ago

When it comes to, politically, how do we make Tokyo-esque urbanism feasible in America, the key is building a coalition of folks who are more interested in the dynamism of their cities than they are in the value of their particular property.

I think younger people are beginning to feel this way, as property ownership in cities becomes increasingly out of reach. But also, the amount of financial power that the property owning class has and the financial incentives to continue to develop our cities (more like metros) in the way that we have makes changing this exceptionally difficult.

esyir• 4 years ago

It's interesting you put it this way, since one of the reasons for Tokyo's public transport success has been exactly this "property owning".

Aeolun3• 4 years ago

property ownership in cities becomes increasingly out of reach

Ironically maybe least true in Tokyo, where interest rates are extremely low, and houses are still sort of affordable as long as you can adjust your expectations (e.g. no 200sqm mansions).

twblalock4• 4 years ago

Tokyo is a cheaper place to live than most people think -- in fact, it is probably cheaper than any major city in California. But most people in California would not be willing to sacrifice the standard of living they have, even in apartments. Many studio apartments in America are quite a lot larger and better equipped than a one or two-bedroom apartment in Tokyo.

HEmanZ• 4 years ago

I think the author needs an updated understanding of what is missing. Being interested in a particular property value would absolutely lead to more interest in dense dynamic cities. A city block in tokyo is probably worth more than a city block in most American cities. A capitalist with an interest in seeing their land values go way up would absolutely champion a more dense, desirable city.

I think the problem is actually that people with aggregate political power in cities in America don’t really care about property values in the monetary sense. They treat their homes, community, and city on more political/ideological/ethical terms and preferences than on economic terms. The dense Tokyo-style city is absolutely foreign to most Americans and they disdain actions that would lead toward alternate city structures. This is as opposed to the property owning class, which should be more than happy to see their value go up by making more dense cities, especially when it is funded by taxpayers.

This seems like a case of just assuming capitalists/landowners are to blame and then coming up with an argument.

milkytron2• 4 years ago

Right, it's certainly multifaceted. Political, ideological, and ethical values all impact how people desire their community to be. Economics also has some impact.

I'm not saying it's capitalists or landowners who are to blame for how US cities have been developed, simply that the power they hold and their influence on politics pose great challenges (amongst many other challenges) for creating more dynamic cities.

twblalock4• 4 years ago

Exactly. The root cause of NIMBYism is not preservation of property values. It is preservation of neighborhood character -- low density, peace and quiet, low traffic, etc.

People who just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for a down payment on a house in the suburbs do not want their neighborhood to change into something that is not a suburb. If they wanted to live in a dense urban area, they would have done that.

As housing gets more expensive, this tendency will only increase -- if you had to work really hard for a really long time to buy a house, you will probably be more unhappy to find out that your neighborhood is changing than if you didn't have to try that hard to get into it -- especially when your options to move elsewhere are at least as expensive.

bmitc10• 4 years ago

It’s a real problem. I love the dynamism of cities but had to move out due to affordance. Now that I own a home, it’s a major conflict because I just dumped non-retirement life savings into this home. If it lost major value, it would be disastrous. I’m happy enough for more urbanism and communities, but why do I need to sacrifice my life savings to support that?

The U.S. government has really allowed things to get out of hand with housing. The first thing they should address are investors and companies buying up houses. There are at least two houses in my neighborhood sitting empty and quickly dilapidating, as they were likely purchased by investors.

Gigachad• 4 years ago

I think the original statement doesn't really get to the truth of it. High density and vibrant communities are positives for property value. People objecting to these changes either aren't thinking logically or they aren't objecting to the value part. They want to preserve the character of the area they moved in to.

eloisant2• 4 years ago

The home you live in is not an investment, you should not see it as one.

If the $ value of your house goes down, you can still live it in just fine. If you want to move, and the overall market is down, you will sell your house for less but you will also buy your new house for less. No matter what, a 100m2 house is still worth a 100m2 house in a similar neighborhood.

The only case you should be worried is if only YOUR neighborhood goes down in price while the rest of your city is stable or going up. Or only your city is going down and you want to move to a different city.

Anyway - it's still unclear to me how allowing small business in residential area would make the housing prices go down. If anything it would make it go up as having small business in a walking distance is very convenient.

Even multi-stories buildings, I see why homeowners don't want them because of their personal confort, but if it becomes the norm I don't see how it would make their property prices go down.

davidw4• 4 years ago

Companies owning housing don't show up locally to block new housing:

The role of institutional investors is still being studied, but the popularity of the narrative strikes at something dangerous: People want a convenient boogeyman and when they get it, they often ignore the structural problems that are harder to combat. Housing undersupply is the result of decades of locals opposing new home building. It’s not something that can be blamed on Wall Street greed and the nefarious tinkering of a private equity firm. And that’s a much harder truth to stomach.

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22524829/wall-street-housin...

davidw4• 4 years ago

The rapidly growing membership of organizations working on housing issues, like

* https://yimbyaction.org/

* https://welcomingneighbors.us/

is proof that this is something people care about a lot and are fighting hard for. And we're starting to notch up some successes, too!

_Wintermute• 4 years ago

Another thing is pedestrianised streets and lack of on-street parking. It makes it so much more pleasant to walk around and sit outside.

Schiendelman4• 4 years ago

A lot of the streets that seem pedestrianized are not! They're just so small, and have so little reason for a driver to use them, that drivers don't.

reustle• 4 years ago

Those streets also instigate walking anywhere on the street (no sidewalk), slowing down drivers even more. A beautiful cycle. I drive in Tokyo regularly and love this system.

1270018080• 4 years ago

Car infrastructure and draconian zoning laws destroying civilization. A tale as old as... the early 1900s.

Schiendelman4• 4 years ago

Overturning zoning wholesale in the US would probably lead to the most improvement in societal outcomes possible from one law. You'd get higher population density in every city. A tiny list of likely outcomes:

- Lower per capita infrastructure costs

- Lower BMI (more walking as things are closer together)

- Lower per capita energy usage and CO2 emissions

- Fewer school shootings (they decrease as neighborhood density increases)

- Lower rents in cities

...the list goes on.

Insanity• 4 years ago

I agree with most but don’t see how it would lower school shootings (source for your statement?). Also there are definitely other ways to prevent that.

neonate• 4 years ago

https://archive.ph/itpRl

decafninja• 4 years ago

I’ll preface this by saying I still prefer the diversity of somewhere like NYC over the monoculture of many East Asian cities including Tokyo.

But there are certain cultural and demographic factors in play in such East Asian cities, which are often considered a bit taboo to mention. However these factors are also responsible directly or indirectly, for some of the most praised aspects of these cities. And why it would be virtually impossible to replicate some of these successes in somewhere like NYC.

twblalock4• 4 years ago

But there are certain cultural and demographic factors in play in such East Asian cities, which are often considered a bit taboo to mention.

If you aren't going to mention those factors, why hint at them? Just to annoy people and puff yourself up by insinuating you know something special that others aren't willing to hear? Just say what you mean -- or don't even bring it up.

quadrifoliate2• 4 years ago

certain cultural and demographic factors...considered a bit taboo to mention

I doubt that these factors (presumably the more heterogenous racial and cultural makeup of Japan as compared to the US) have anything to do with the contrasts for operating small businesses that are specifically mentioned in TFA:

- For any two-story rowhouse in Tokyo, the owner can by right operate a bar, a restaurant, a boutique, a small workshop on the ground floor — even in the most residential zoned sections of the city.

- Liquor licenses are extremely cheap and easy. A liquor license in an American city can sometimes run up to $500,000.

- (In the US) Usually for retirement, people are counting on their property values going up so they have a strong incentive to resist changes that might threaten them. A lot of the dynamism we see in the emergent urbanism of Tokyo are things that reduce predictability, which reduce property values.

Are there cases in the US where similar liberal regulations for operating businesses have been established, and shown to fail due to demographic or cultural factors? I suspect not.

But as things stand now even in small US cities, there is a ton of red tape that stands in the way of small businesses. That has little to nothing to do with cultural and demographic factors; and happens to be largely the focus of the article.

ravel-bar-foo• 4 years ago

My guess would be that a lot of what makes Tokyo work is its high-trust society, rather than its (homogeneous) demographics per se. Building a society with high trust seems historically path dependent, so a lot of the things that work well in Tokyo might not work well in the US.

For example, if you can trust that new restaurants will not cut corners on cost, health inspection becomes more of a formality. If you can trust the building will be left in good condition by businesses, it is more acceptable to rent a place out to whoever wants it, and so you see as time goes by that a small cornerstore becomes an upscale hairdresser, which becomes a laundromat, which becomes a take-out restaurant.

Homogeneous demographics might help, but I suspect building a high trust society is more culture than demographics. For example, a religious group may create a high-trust enclave by promising to excommunicate members who violate norms, while a demographically homogeneous country may destroy its culture in civil war and build something low-trust, too (China).

bmitc10• 4 years ago

What is the monoculture of Tokyo? Or are you just saying it’s monoracial? To an outsider, Tokyo seems endlessly diverse.

marsantwo• 4 years ago

If you are interested in why the Japanese/Tokyo urban design works then look at these 2 links from the "Life where I am from" Youtube channel

Why Japan Looks the Way it Does: Zoning https://youtu.be/wfm2xCKOCNk

What a Typical Tokyo Neighbourhood is Like https://youtu.be/TheOkz8oF_I

rr808• 4 years ago

I dont think Tokyo has any valuable lessons for Western cities. People talk about how its affordable but its only a few decades since it was by far the most expensive real estate in the world.

JKCalhoun3• 4 years ago

Tokyo (and Japanese culture in general) may be so different from Western (specifically U.S.) cities that I suspect you are right. But I don't think the decline in Japanese real-estate value is the problem.

I've got a sort of mixed-message about Tokyo real-estate prices anyway. Sometimes the impression I have is that it still is expensive but only if you are comparing the cost per square feet with Western cities and not the cost of dwellings — I guess the salient point being that the Tokyo-ite will live in a smaller "flat" than their Western counterpart and so may in fact have a smaller rent.

ajmurmann7• 4 years ago

And these small units would be illegal in most modern US cities. Alain Bertaud who wrote Order Without Design described how his family lived in a tiny apartment in NYC when they first moved to the US. The unit would now be illegal and they wouldn't have an option.

It's over of the many cases where we don't like the options that poverty forces people to choose, so we make the options illegal instead of doing something about poverty.

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the spontaneous city

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