Cities and any polity or group of people cannot be created by some abstract rules or enforced. You need it to be composed of individuals who are disposed to act harmoniously with each other and have a culture (which is basically a bunch of jigging to aid harmonious interactions, you cannot create top down the manners you don't want people to violate). Everyone acting in their own self-interest ends up creating a harmonious organization because all of their self-interest corresponds such that their self interest is reflected in the good of the whole.
Just as a feedback system, if there is something wrong in a city or organization if the person who encounters it sees it as contrary to their own self interest and is capable of dealing with it themselves they will.
If this internal principle does not exist you rely on top down surveillance and enforcement which is basically delusional if it works will only be through violent enforcement against the people. Again in terms of a feedback system, if the polity is constructed out of a bunch of individuals who have a self-interest that corresponds with the good of the whole, there is no need to propagate that information to some manager. The persons directly involved with it are capable of dealing with it mindful of it's impact on the good of the whole because it's good for them. If you do not have that you would need a system of management, evaluation, and enforcement which basically demands the disruption in question is something easy to communicate and form policies around. Anything that cannot be just cannot be dealt with and the system falls under it's own weight. That's why technocracy is a delusion that is always doomed to fail, if the individual units in a system are unable to deal with aberrations on their own it requires the whole mass of bureaucracy to evaluate, construct policies, enforce etc. That is only capable of handling anything which is understandable to that kind of system, which is a small fraction of actual disruptions.
I appreciate the efforts of people trying to emulate the positives of Japanese cities mimicking the externals of it and enforcing it on other people is the opposite of any actual organic system and itself prohibits the more dynamic system that is required for an actually stable polity. If someone sees a wallet on the street they have to see it as their own self-interest not to steal it. If people do not see themselves as having a shared self-interest with those around them there is no enforcement or rules or policies that can make that polity stable or harmonious.
Singapore is a multi-culturial society and it is also known to be very safe and clean like Japan. You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.
>You can definitely make people behave with top down rules, and eventually it just becomes 'culture'.
If by people you mean the particular type of people that live in Singapore, who are known across the world to be supple and tame. Now try this logic in the United States with certain subpopulations who are chronically misbehaved and see where it gets you. Hint: it's been tried for a long time and it doesn't work.
Authoritarianism has a bad connotation in Western societies based on individualism.
In Japan, the authority is the group and social norms. In Singapore, it’s the BDFL. This involve restricting individual freedoms for the greater good. This would never work in America.
> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works."
Honestly, even though I love the idea of Japan and the idealized vision of Japan that's often presented in the media, I can't help thinking that a lot of this stuff can be found much closer to home in Europe. The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
> ... they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city
That's a horseload of bullcrap. For a start there are plenty of pickpockets in many spanish cities (not just Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Then there are people visiting houses: don't tell me it doesn't happen for I had my house visited by thieves the one time I forgot to put the alarm on (because I had to run to the ER for my daughter was between life and death).
I happen to know both Spain and Japan very well (I've got family in Japan): there's not anywhere near the level of safety you have in Tokyo in spanish cities.
> The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
This. When my Japanese girlfriend finally visited my small hometown in Spain, she was surprised how lively the city was. Not Madrid or Barcelona, but just a small 100k city. In Japan the big cities are cool, but small cities are ugly and boring.
I had to laugh when they put a quote from a wheelchair user at the top of the article. Japan is many good things, but friendly to wheelchair users is not one of them.
As western tourists always seem to find out when they land with their gigantic suitcases, many Tokyo train stations require stairs to enter or exit.
You can find similar articles by other media outlets. Japan has changed - and is changing. I've also noticed this on youtube, e. g. Paolo from Tokyo suddenly praising new restrictive laws. That was a strong indicator that Japan really fundamentally changed here. An old chinese stratagem is to hide the dagger behind the smile: https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/chinese-slang-hide-a-d...
I am not in any way applying that this applies to all japanese as such, of course; but I am more referring here to a trend where things are changing to the worse. Also, cost of living is high and there is an overcrowding problem in many of the cities. Even then I think the only city that would interest me is Tokio.
The BBC forgot - or, as is more likely, refused to mention - rule #0: ensure a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour.
> When I read comments like yours, I always read "homogeneous" as "ethnically pure", and judge the comment writer accordingly.
followed by:
> but I think your projecting your idea of "racism works!"...
You're judging what you want to see which says a lot about you and nothing about the comment. Let me spell it out for you so that you may not make this mistake next time:
Culture [1]: the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time
Ethnicity [2]: a large group of people with a shared culture, language, history, set of traditions, etc., or the fact of belonging to one of these groups
Neither the word culture (which I used) nor ethnicity (which you used) are related to race or racism (which you used as well). As you see, your claims of racism are in the eyes of the beholder, i.e. yours.
Drop it already, stop thinking in terms of race and racism. Do better as 'progressives' like to say, or educate yourself or whatever terms you prefer to use. Accept that not everyone thinks like you, in terms of race. Accept that most people use words like culture in their original meaning as stated above. Accept, in other words, that most people are not as race-fixated as you seem to be judging by your comment.
I wonder how much of these architecture, building etc decisions are because of higher percentage of aging population. In the west, we see more anti-homeless designs (spikes, removing benches in train stations etc) which is sad
Earlier on I posted the following comment which for some inexplicable reason got flagged:
The BBC forgot - or, as is more likely, refused to mention - rule #0: ensure a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour.
To the person or persons who flagged this comment, please explain. What is it that got you to flag this comment? If there is one thing Japan is known for it is for having a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour. Is the truth so hard to accept that it needs flagging? Those Japanese cities without Japanese culture would look totally different and in some ways not nearly as 'liveable', in other ways probably more interesting.
If you don't agree with a comment there is the reply link to let us know. This is a discussion site after all. If you just don't like a comment without being able to put into words why just give it some more thought, the words may come.
Probably the snide reference to what the BBC "refused to mention" rule #0.
Afghanistan has an even lower immigrant population than Japan, and rather stringent rules around public behavior, and few would call Kabul liveable. In terms of immigrant population, Japan sits around #155 of the ~230 countries in the world. You take a gander at the 75-80 countries [1] with less immigrants percentage wise than Japan (for a combined total by the way of 2 thirds of the world's population), map it against your own "livability" or "social trust" metrics and then see if your rule #0 (that the BBC apparently studiously avoids mentioning) still holds much water.
Japanese cities are livable in large part because Japanese people are socialized against behaviors that are not conducive to living in close quarters with other people. If you ask them they’ll tell you that.
I have watched a few videos on YT of people riding or walking around Tokyo and other cities. I think its a good example of what life there is really like in terms of seeing the environment, cleanliness, beauty, nature, buildings and more.
The only people in the background that I could see were people, young and old, travelling to and from school, offices, workplaces and so on.
The video was long and if i were to travel one day to Tokyo i would definitely follow the same route. Fresh air, nature, backstreets, all sorts of engineering and views.
How is it possible that a city of 35M in the heart of Tokyo, he barely passed a few bicycles and people outdoors enjoying life during a trip that went all over the place for hours ?
Before reading the article, I guessed that it would ultimately be about human cooperation. Most discussions about human activities seem to come back to how people work together and respect shared spaces.
I also think this idea extends to environmental problems. In the end, they still boil down to human cooperation. If we want to solve environmental problems, we first have to solve problems of human cooperation. Simply put, to reduce conflict between humans and nature, we must first reduce conflict among humans.
I have been living in the inaka for 8 years now and I always laugh at this kind of articles. They only focus on the core areas of Tokyo, Osaka, and a few big others cities, and forget to mention that outside of those areas the whole country is just endless urban sprawl of the ugliest, soulless cities you can imagine.
People are forced to go to the big cities for economic reasons and not lifestyle reasons. Unlike America, it’s not just white collar office workers who must relocate to urban centers. This concentration forms a feedback loop.
There are too many people that don't need taking elevators at busy stations. The amount of times I had to cary a pram up the stairs because waiting was too long.
You can get this in Morocco yet there's never any articles about that ... it's almost like they're leaving out a major reason why they like Japan and it's not that the cities are walkable.
Many comments point to "monoculture", but I think that a more useful lens to look at this is "the importance of maintaining society vs the importance of individual rights". In Japan, if you maintain society, my experience is that everyone is welcome (in my experience).
It seems like many times "society vs individual" discussion comes down to a cartoon like straw man discussion, but, living in Japan a long time, the difference in balance point feels quite tangible every day. I won't claim that this is a good tradeoff for everybody, but each society has quite serious benefits as (at times grating) restrictions.
It can be quite difficult to do something too outside the norm in Tokyo, but I am always surprised by the kindness, thoughtfulness and humane-ness I have been shown over the years.
In places like San Francisco, a wild variation of individual expression is encouraged, but it sometimes interactions with other people can feel quite jarring and little recognition for simple, calm coexisting humanity.
Japan is a homogeneous country, their solutions are for all Japanese.
US's #1 priority is to separate out the undesirables from living next to you. This was accomplished by zoning (big lots, min construction size, HOAs, laws), suburbs, must have car, etc -- all of which are only accessible to the super rich.
38 comments
[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 56.1 ms ] threadCities and any polity or group of people cannot be created by some abstract rules or enforced. You need it to be composed of individuals who are disposed to act harmoniously with each other and have a culture (which is basically a bunch of jigging to aid harmonious interactions, you cannot create top down the manners you don't want people to violate). Everyone acting in their own self-interest ends up creating a harmonious organization because all of their self-interest corresponds such that their self interest is reflected in the good of the whole.
Just as a feedback system, if there is something wrong in a city or organization if the person who encounters it sees it as contrary to their own self interest and is capable of dealing with it themselves they will.
If this internal principle does not exist you rely on top down surveillance and enforcement which is basically delusional if it works will only be through violent enforcement against the people. Again in terms of a feedback system, if the polity is constructed out of a bunch of individuals who have a self-interest that corresponds with the good of the whole, there is no need to propagate that information to some manager. The persons directly involved with it are capable of dealing with it mindful of it's impact on the good of the whole because it's good for them. If you do not have that you would need a system of management, evaluation, and enforcement which basically demands the disruption in question is something easy to communicate and form policies around. Anything that cannot be just cannot be dealt with and the system falls under it's own weight. That's why technocracy is a delusion that is always doomed to fail, if the individual units in a system are unable to deal with aberrations on their own it requires the whole mass of bureaucracy to evaluate, construct policies, enforce etc. That is only capable of handling anything which is understandable to that kind of system, which is a small fraction of actual disruptions.
I appreciate the efforts of people trying to emulate the positives of Japanese cities mimicking the externals of it and enforcing it on other people is the opposite of any actual organic system and itself prohibits the more dynamic system that is required for an actually stable polity. If someone sees a wallet on the street they have to see it as their own self-interest not to steal it. If people do not see themselves as having a shared self-interest with those around them there is no enforcement or rules or policies that can make that polity stable or harmonious.
If by people you mean the particular type of people that live in Singapore, who are known across the world to be supple and tame. Now try this logic in the United States with certain subpopulations who are chronically misbehaved and see where it gets you. Hint: it's been tried for a long time and it doesn't work.
Authoritarianism has a bad connotation in Western societies based on individualism.
In Japan, the authority is the group and social norms. In Singapore, it’s the BDFL. This involve restricting individual freedoms for the greater good. This would never work in America.
Honestly, even though I love the idea of Japan and the idealized vision of Japan that's often presented in the media, I can't help thinking that a lot of this stuff can be found much closer to home in Europe. The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
That's a horseload of bullcrap. For a start there are plenty of pickpockets in many spanish cities (not just Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Then there are people visiting houses: don't tell me it doesn't happen for I had my house visited by thieves the one time I forgot to put the alarm on (because I had to run to the ER for my daughter was between life and death).
I happen to know both Spain and Japan very well (I've got family in Japan): there's not anywhere near the level of safety you have in Tokyo in spanish cities.
Not even close.
This. When my Japanese girlfriend finally visited my small hometown in Spain, she was surprised how lively the city was. Not Madrid or Barcelona, but just a small 100k city. In Japan the big cities are cool, but small cities are ugly and boring.
As western tourists always seem to find out when they land with their gigantic suitcases, many Tokyo train stations require stairs to enter or exit.
Well - the article does not talk about the more recent hostility to gaijin in Japan.
Example (article) from a year ago:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/09/21/j...
You can find similar articles by other media outlets. Japan has changed - and is changing. I've also noticed this on youtube, e. g. Paolo from Tokyo suddenly praising new restrictive laws. That was a strong indicator that Japan really fundamentally changed here. An old chinese stratagem is to hide the dagger behind the smile: https://www.echineselearning.com/blog/chinese-slang-hide-a-d...
I am not in any way applying that this applies to all japanese as such, of course; but I am more referring here to a trend where things are changing to the worse. Also, cost of living is high and there is an overcrowding problem in many of the cities. Even then I think the only city that would interest me is Tokio.
Its like those people have no life, it seems to be a self imposed volunteer prison.
Work, sleep, work, repeat until you die.
No debating about the stringent rules, which I'ver read comes from the Samurai times, but I think your projecting your idea of "racism works!"...
followed by:
> but I think your projecting your idea of "racism works!"...
You're judging what you want to see which says a lot about you and nothing about the comment. Let me spell it out for you so that you may not make this mistake next time:
Culture [1]: the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time
Ethnicity [2]: a large group of people with a shared culture, language, history, set of traditions, etc., or the fact of belonging to one of these groups
Neither the word culture (which I used) nor ethnicity (which you used) are related to race or racism (which you used as well). As you see, your claims of racism are in the eyes of the beholder, i.e. yours.
Drop it already, stop thinking in terms of race and racism. Do better as 'progressives' like to say, or educate yourself or whatever terms you prefer to use. Accept that not everyone thinks like you, in terms of race. Accept that most people use words like culture in their original meaning as stated above. Accept, in other words, that most people are not as race-fixated as you seem to be judging by your comment.
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/culture
[2] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ethnicit...
The BBC forgot - or, as is more likely, refused to mention - rule #0: ensure a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour.
To the person or persons who flagged this comment, please explain. What is it that got you to flag this comment? If there is one thing Japan is known for it is for having a homogeneous culture with rather stringent rules around public behaviour. Is the truth so hard to accept that it needs flagging? Those Japanese cities without Japanese culture would look totally different and in some ways not nearly as 'liveable', in other ways probably more interesting.
If you don't agree with a comment there is the reply link to let us know. This is a discussion site after all. If you just don't like a comment without being able to put into words why just give it some more thought, the words may come.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_im...
Some cities in Europe have town-centers in every neighborhood within walkable distance. This is extremely valuable for a livable city.
Getting to work without car requires good public transport. Again, some European cities very good at this.
The only people in the background that I could see were people, young and old, travelling to and from school, offices, workplaces and so on.
The video was long and if i were to travel one day to Tokyo i would definitely follow the same route. Fresh air, nature, backstreets, all sorts of engineering and views.
How is it possible that a city of 35M in the heart of Tokyo, he barely passed a few bicycles and people outdoors enjoying life during a trip that went all over the place for hours ?
Is that living ?
Before reading the article, I guessed that it would ultimately be about human cooperation. Most discussions about human activities seem to come back to how people work together and respect shared spaces.
I also think this idea extends to environmental problems. In the end, they still boil down to human cooperation. If we want to solve environmental problems, we first have to solve problems of human cooperation. Simply put, to reduce conflict between humans and nature, we must first reduce conflict among humans.
It seems like many times "society vs individual" discussion comes down to a cartoon like straw man discussion, but, living in Japan a long time, the difference in balance point feels quite tangible every day. I won't claim that this is a good tradeoff for everybody, but each society has quite serious benefits as (at times grating) restrictions.
It can be quite difficult to do something too outside the norm in Tokyo, but I am always surprised by the kindness, thoughtfulness and humane-ness I have been shown over the years. In places like San Francisco, a wild variation of individual expression is encouraged, but it sometimes interactions with other people can feel quite jarring and little recognition for simple, calm coexisting humanity.
It really comes down to personal preferences.
US's #1 priority is to separate out the undesirables from living next to you. This was accomplished by zoning (big lots, min construction size, HOAs, laws), suburbs, must have car, etc -- all of which are only accessible to the super rich.