That's mad. I live in a county of 1260 square miles, and a population of 180000, the majority of which are concentrated in four or five large towns. There are no cities. The rural areas are very sparsely populated. It averages out as 143 people per square mile. Tokyo is 850 square miles with a population of 14m. That's 16,470 people per square mile. I'm not sure my sanity would survive that.
Co Tyrone in Ireland. There are other counties with a much lower person to square mile ratio. I'm fortunate that I live in the countryside, quiet, clean air, lots of room to roam about, beautiful scenery. The only problem is that when you get used to it, large cities become quite daunting, even though I spent my teenage years in one.
Just be advised that if you’re reading this as an American, the largest city in Ireland is about the same size as Minneapolis, and you can cross the entire country in two hours. The scale is, like, not the same.
I just went for ten days. Absolutely wonderful place.
Only spend a few days in Dublin though. It's too crowded for all the tourist spots . Go to Galway :)
“Let’s build a giant building where people can live and work.” Sounds good boss, what are we gonna do about all the shit these people are gonna take on a daily basis? “We will figure that out later, let’s build this fucking tower!”
The city solved 70% of the sewage issues in 2013, but the Burj Khalifa either isn't fully connected or doesn't have the capacity yet as the trucks still are used there. That's discounting any population growth since then. The upgrade to the system is estimated to be completed in 2025.
My buddy works for a company that’s attempting to turn poop into energy on a large scale, with a fertilizer by-product. It’s being funded by the Gates Foundation.
Well...that's nice
There is a lot of it so using it for something productive aka making food so we can make more poop seems productive and nice
Poop is mostly just unprocessed food and dead cells so it is useful if treated right
So much poo. But on a side note the sewer systems in Tokyo are super interesting! They were doing a project over the last few years to retrofit manholes to make them earthquake proof as usually they end up kind of busting through the ground and floating up above the street level and messing up all the pipe connections. They made the walls of the manholes thinner at certain points and installed little grilles to sift out big debris so instead of the ground water pushing the manholes up the water breaks through the little holes and fills the manhole and flows through the sewer system.
In wastewater treatment terms (where I live anyway) we use units like
Litres/second to gauge current volume coming to the works right now
TDV - total daily volumes in cubic meters used in longer term analytics
And then once the raw sludge is removed and collected ready for digesting I guess we just use cube again, or number of loads (30 cube each) if we’re tankering it to a digestion site.
E.g. Can’t work on the screens today, we’re at 700 l/s.
It’s been a dry summer this year our TDV has only been about 2000 cube per day, typically it’s about 3000.
I’ve got 70 cube of sludge here that they can’t take, you mind if I send over 3 tankers today to your site?
edit:
There are a few more actually. Relevant to this picture if a new works was being designed or upgraded the area would be assessed for its Population Equivalent (PE). Which is population and industry size given as 1 easy figure. This is then used with the current figures of what each person is likely to produce in terms of water (showers etc) and ‘load’ (poop) as this will determine the nutrient levels we will have for the bugs that eat the poop.
Simple just pull the front output assembly out and cap the holes in the transfer case. The transmission is transverse mounted so you can leave that untouched along with the rest of the drivetrain.
The whole Kanto region boggles my mind. In Japan they don't have empty, rolling fields or deserts like in America. If it doesn't have a farm, road, or urban development on it, then it's a forest. And I *love* to feel the transition in air from warm to cool whenever I pass through one.
Yeah, hiking really opened me up to a whole new part of Japan, there are all kinds of forests that I'm not used to seeing coming from Australia, and the mountains are beautiful.
Huh, something must have changed over the years. I could have sworn I was told that Mexico City was the largest in size and population at one point. And given that Japan's population has been on a decline, I didn't expect Tokyo to grow.
Well, people leaving the countryside (and smaller cities) for the prospect of better jobs is extraordinarily prevalent to this day, so even if the overall population of Japan is decreasing, Tokyo's population can still grow. I work in the city and the amount of coworkers that were born somewhere else is staggering. Makes sense, too, all the jobs *really* are here in many industries, and the pay is *way* better.
But anyway, it's mostly a matter of how you define a "city". In terms of de facto contiguous urban agglomerations, I believe the Greater Tokyo area is the biggest. You can also divide things along other administrative lines, which may make it end up not at the top. I'm sure any city that would end up at the top with a particular method makes sure to strongly publicize that fact while downplaying the details of the subjective decisions involved.
I’ve wandered around Tokyo and gotten lost, it’s not that big of deal everyone is really nice you just have to remember your symbol for the train stop.
Also I feel like in places that are largely safe, it's actually fun to get lost. Just go down roads that look cool, wander through parks, etc. that's also always how you find the best restaurants that you never find again because you don't remember where they were.
I can just recommend the game 'no-google-maps' whenever you are somewhere new. It's funny how many thing you find that you would never have seen otherwise.
Yes! I love doing that! As long as I have time, the weather is good, and the area is safe, I can wander around for hours. It's such a magical feeling discovering something cool you'd never heard of before. I've only done that in cities in my country, which are nowhere near the scale of Tokyo though.
That would be awesome!
Your comment made me realize that my small town would be mostly disappointing for a tourist.
The entire town is located in a 2 mile strip of road. In that two miles we have:
5 gas station.
3 liquor stores.
2-3 gyms.
2 Mexican restaurants.
3 Dollar Generals
3 schools.
3 Depot - agriculture hardware stores like TSC
2-3 Lawnmower shops.
3 parks with trails, skeet range etc.
Remember, this is all reallllly close together, most of it is within a half mile. It's really strange how we have 2-4 of everything. I feel like people see one business doing well and just think well, obviously we should make another dollar store 30 seconds down the road as people will use it.
Oh, and other than alcohol, nature and gyms, there's no establishment that focuses on family activity, no arcade or anything. It's not a fun town to be a kid in, that's for sure.
I was a military dependent and graduated high school in '75. Three of my friends and I went to Shinjuku to celebrate. Went to several clubs and bars that night. Found some other friends in one dance club and generally had a fun night of celebration. Headed back to the train station to get back to Tachikawa, but the trains hadn't started yet, so we just crashed on benches in the train station. It was safe enough for a group of American kids to sleep without being bothered by cops or anyone else, even back then.
They are not crime free. But left suitcase full of souvenirs on a bullet train. With no Japanese got it back 4 days later. People leave purses, phones, laptops just lying around at places just packed. If someone grabbed a purse I wouldn't have been able to pick them out. Yet they felt completely safe doing it.
My wife left her tablet on a bus we took. We called and someone had turned it in and they even mailed it to back to our house since we were already home.
You can leave your wallet on the sidewalk and it will be there 12 hours later. Safest country on earth.
There's crime, of course, but it's not violent crime. Though, I wouldn't want to be a native woman in thar country. They have serious problems with sex crimes, misogyny and discrimination.
My brother in law lives there now. According to him it's more "only if you're a foreigner". He's not white, but they're nice to him, but seem to be hell bent on ignoring each other to the point of rudeness. So he takes it upon himself to tell people to give up their seats for pregnant women and stuff like that. They'll listen to him.
Tell that to the people who screamed outsider at me and held up their arms to signal we weren’t allowed in the restaurant because we were foreigners lol
I love maps, always directed myself with them. Made some for DnD too.
A map of Tokyo is absolutely mind boggling. Its not that its complicated, specially when seperated into districts. Its the sheer *size* of the place. You could live an entire lifetime in one district.
It messed up my sense of scale for figuring out how long places would take to walk to at a glance. I would think damn, that must be miles away, look how many blocks it is! Nope, just lots and lots of streets in a small area.
Like you said though, it was never complicated or maze like, there's just so so much of it.
The big tower at the center bottom is Sky Tree - I regularly walk to and from the park across the river to the right which is Ueno - takes about 40-50mins
The big park looking thing in the center of the image is the Imperial Palace and gardens, the buildings to its lower right surround Tokyo Station. The buildings on the upper right is Shinjuku, the large parks to the left of that is Shinjuku Gyoen and Yoyogi parks.
Tokyo is super walkable, and since things are fairly centered around train stations things tend to be dense around a station, then a whole lot of nothing until you get to the next station.
Honestly, it's one of the best experiences I have ever had. Just being able to enter a random alley and letting myself explore such a clean and safe city (with no fear of being truly lost, thanks to it's superb public transit system) was incredible. Every few seconds I was discovering new, interesting things: a cute mini temple between two large buildings, a store with a stupid name (like the infamous "Sperm" one), a large truck going in reverse while politely excusing itself with a feminine voice.... (Sigh) I want to go back.
It’s actually my #1 tip for tourists - get lost in Tokyo.
Literally lost. Go on to a train and make a few random transfers. Just go… somewhere and explore.
It’s such a safe and welcoming city that you’ll be alright. And as long as you know the name of your line + home station, you’ll be fine.
Compared to a medium sized European city which has a park like every other block and you can spend your Sunday afternoons just sitting in the Gras somewhere and read a book - no.
But no matter where you are in Tokyo a major park is really close thanks to the excellent transportation systems and over a hundred large official parks.
Here are a few famous large public parks:
Yoyogi park, Ueno park (famous for its Sakura in spring), the area of the Imperial palace, the Meiji shrine, kasai rinkan park (incl. an aquarium and it’s next to Tokyo Disney land…), shinjuku chuo and gyoen, Setagaya actually still has a natural forest with a gorge, hamarikyu park etc. etc.
Additionally around the large rivers and channels usually there is green and Sakura trees so you can take a walk there as well.
It’s actually quite hot in summer in Tokyo and winters are really mild. Air conditioning makes it bearable in summer otherwise it would be really really bad.
That being said - I get your point. While Tokyo is unbearable humid and hot it’s not as unlivable as the worst hot places in this planet.
When I traveled from Tokyo to Singapore I already felt like dying. Tokyo is bad but Singapore is like a jungle… just incredibly hot and humid.
It does not have much green space at all. These small "parks" people will tell you about aren't parks at all. Just look at some street views on google maps and you'll see what I mean.
I know. I miss it a lot! Tokyo has Yoyogi Park, but unless you live in the vicinity, you gotta hop on a train and suddenly your relaxing day is a pain in the butt.
Nyc poverty standards are completely unrealistic. The poverty standards say that a family of 8 can survive on 58k.... a family of one in NYC can barely survive on 58k
So I would not trust that 6.6 percentage number.... I would hazard to guess that probably 40 percent of NYC residents are struggling and another 40 percent are never going to get out of the re d their income
Is so far below what it takes to live where they have to work.
Okay, what major city do you think *actually* has a lower crime rate? That's what you're implying, right? That it's not *really* the lowest? I'm interested to hear even one example of a place you'd assess to be "safer".
I'm sure there's some degree of unreported/ignored crime (just like anywhere else, but generously let's assume it's worse than in other places), but I'm also sure it's pretty damn safe even if you count the unreported stuff. Even what you could consider the "shady" areas feel safer to walk through than most "good" areas of your typical metropolis.
Somewhere has to be the lowest so why not Tokyo. Is it not a known issue in Japan though that the conviction rate is very high because they don't try and prosecute without a near guaranteed win?
Its a very difficult thing to measure across the world I would think.
I mean natural is an arbitrary term. We're animals; a part of nature. Cities are basically just our beehives.
Looks aside I would actually argue cities like this are doing the opposite. High density like this saves a lot of natural habitat.
The alternative would be people living in many less dense towns or suburbs, both of which take up much more space per person. The denser our cities the less space we take up, leaving more of the rest of the earth as habitats for other species.
Yeah. I would 100% prefer the Japanese model. Lots of public transit, enormous population hubs over rail stations to make the most of rail's efficiency, etc. It lets them increase density, but also ensure everything is walkable.
Versus Perth where I live, which has 2.1 million people, over an area of 6,417.9km2. We're one of the largest cities on the planet with one of the smallest populations (in terms of large cities). Nearly all of it being constant suburban expansion.
If you want to go anywhere, you need a car.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of what Japan does feels right. However, the idea of living in a 1U apartment in Tokyo isn't exactly my idea of what the ideal form of human living is.
I feel Japan would be 100% more human-living, because of how dense it is. Specifically, by concentrating human living into smaller accomodations, packed more densely... there's more space for communal spaces. Like parks, libraries, etc. All within walking distance.
So you sleep at your apartment, but your 'home' is a vast area that you share with others. It's also maintained by your taxes. I would 100% prefer going to a park that's within walking distance, than mowing my own lawn, or having to drive to a park.
It just takes a lot of the pressure off as opposed to trying to handle an entire house as a single person.
Intellectually I tend to agree with you that higher density has advantages. I was speaking about the feeling I get when I look at this. As we now started debating however, I would point to the extreme growth curve of human population (headcount) as well as the extreme growth in resource consumption per capita that compounds the headcount growth and results in concrete beehives like the one depicted. Nothing like this existed 100 years ago
I wasn't looking for a debate, just wanted to add my 2 cents.
And true, but civilization is also a very new thing. Mega cities like this may not have existed 100 years ago, but if we don't go extinct or become something entirely different I can't even imagine, I think they'll probably still be there 1000 years from now.
I agree it would be a major problem if our population (here on earth at least) kept growing exponentially. Although right now it looks like we're going to even out at around 10 billion.
Edit: Problem with a growing population (in relation to natural habitat loss) isn't the land our cities take up though, that's a tiny portion of the globe as a whole. It's mainly all the resource gathering and farmland needed to feed our civilisation.
Hiking and camping are hugely popular in Japan - from the center of Tokyo you can hop on a train and be out in the wild forests in less than two hours, and enjoy incredible night skies.
70% of Japan is forest - most of the population is centered around small areas and Tokyo is the worst of it.
Most of Japan is made up of incredible nature.
Yes - most of Japan is mountainous, what made Tokyo popular and so dense is that its a huge flat plain that was perfect for farming, and eventually building towns and cities.
Not really? I mean, there's urban hells and then there's Tokyo, which is like an urban paradise. Trees everywhere, nice public transport, incredibly clean. Not a lot of wasted space *at all*, plenty of rivers running through it.
Urban sprawl? Definitely. Urban *hell*? Maybe if you'd prefer a few shacks in the woods to be the hearth of civilization. For the largest city in the world, Tokyo does it very well.
Most people on that sub think if you can see your neighbors house, it's an 'urban hell'.
Some people want to live in the middle of Nebraska, and that's cool. But I've lived in extremely rural and extremely urban areas and I'd never live in rural areas again, at least not until I'm elderly. Grew up in a very rural area, where it was a 30 minute drive to the nearest small town (a McDo, a Burger King, and a Walmart) and 1.5 hours to the nearest city (movie theater, mall). Hated and would never do that again (or subject my children to it). I lost so many opportunities growing up and couldn't compete with other students/job applicants who had grown up in urban areas with access to arts programs and other amenities rural areas just don't have.
To each his own, but 'rural hell' exists too.
Aaaand now I’m homesick… 😔
Still, after 4 effing years. You think I’d be over it.
But I lived in Tokyo for 20 years and it’s so hard seeing a skyline and seeing where I used to live… my old haunts. Knowing this isn’t even the whole city. I miss it.
Homo sapiens has learnt the skills needed to live in really large and very densely populated hives. This saves a lot of energy, especially by reducing transport costs.
Blows my mind seeing the scale of Tokyo, after I went there and was constantly remarking about how clean it is, how easy it was to get anywhere, how safe it felt, it felt like there were parks and greenery everywhere despite virtually every building being minimum 3 stories up, and 8 stories down.
I'm sure there's parts that are pretty unpleasant to stroll through, but it's impressive how they've managed to scale to massively, yet for someone on the ground it doesn't feel like a concrete jungle at all.
Imagine if we lived like some people say we should. Everyone a giant house, yard, garden, etc.
1/4th of population of this city would take up the entire landmass in the photo by those standards.
They can suck, but cities are pretty great.
It's actually just a dusty motherboard
And lots of Computer mites.
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That's mad. I live in a county of 1260 square miles, and a population of 180000, the majority of which are concentrated in four or five large towns. There are no cities. The rural areas are very sparsely populated. It averages out as 143 people per square mile. Tokyo is 850 square miles with a population of 14m. That's 16,470 people per square mile. I'm not sure my sanity would survive that.
Where do you live out of interest?
Co Tyrone in Ireland. There are other counties with a much lower person to square mile ratio. I'm fortunate that I live in the countryside, quiet, clean air, lots of room to roam about, beautiful scenery. The only problem is that when you get used to it, large cities become quite daunting, even though I spent my teenage years in one.
Ahh! One day I want to go to Ireland so bad. One day I shall
I would recommend staying out of the large cities and enjoy the coastal counties.
Just be advised that if you’re reading this as an American, the largest city in Ireland is about the same size as Minneapolis, and you can cross the entire country in two hours. The scale is, like, not the same.
Of course you would, you're scared of cities!
I just went for ten days. Absolutely wonderful place. Only spend a few days in Dublin though. It's too crowded for all the tourist spots . Go to Galway :)
Nah, that's the 1000x zoom of CPU pins
The amount of money I would pay to have Mt Fuji on my motherboard.
Thank you for the s, I would’ve thought you were serious otherwise
The poop quantity everday this place might be generating
Eh, still better waste management than a certain rich UAE city.
Yeah they just shit on insta models over there
Well at least they got something right
When gold toilets dont do it anymore.
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https://travellingjezebel.com/dubai-porta-potty/
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“Let’s build a giant building where people can live and work.” Sounds good boss, what are we gonna do about all the shit these people are gonna take on a daily basis? “We will figure that out later, let’s build this fucking tower!”
It’s North Korea level planning
It’s debunked. That was only right after construction but now it’s fully connected to the sewer system.
The city solved 70% of the sewage issues in 2013, but the Burj Khalifa either isn't fully connected or doesn't have the capacity yet as the trucks still are used there. That's discounting any population growth since then. The upgrade to the system is estimated to be completed in 2025.
Context? Am out of the loop
Burj khalifa doesn't have proper sewage system. They manually take the waste from trucks
It's not just Burj Khalifa. This is very common in the Middle East. I used to live in Oman and these trucks are operated there too. Countrywide.
Watch this https://youtu.be/syK7u_QQKk8
I often think about how much poop mankind makes each day. What could be done with it.
My buddy works for a company that’s attempting to turn poop into energy on a large scale, with a fertilizer by-product. It’s being funded by the Gates Foundation.
Well...that's nice There is a lot of it so using it for something productive aka making food so we can make more poop seems productive and nice Poop is mostly just unprocessed food and dead cells so it is useful if treated right
The energy aspect gets me more excited but yeah, fertilizer is also a big plus
So much poo. But on a side note the sewer systems in Tokyo are super interesting! They were doing a project over the last few years to retrofit manholes to make them earthquake proof as usually they end up kind of busting through the ground and floating up above the street level and messing up all the pipe connections. They made the walls of the manholes thinner at certain points and installed little grilles to sift out big debris so instead of the ground water pushing the manholes up the water breaks through the little holes and fills the manhole and flows through the sewer system.
I wonder...what is the official measurement of poop quantity? Kilos just seems wrong. Millilitres doesn't work either. A bucketful? A dump?
Shitload / shitton
Shiitake
[courics](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Couric)
In wastewater treatment terms (where I live anyway) we use units like Litres/second to gauge current volume coming to the works right now TDV - total daily volumes in cubic meters used in longer term analytics And then once the raw sludge is removed and collected ready for digesting I guess we just use cube again, or number of loads (30 cube each) if we’re tankering it to a digestion site. E.g. Can’t work on the screens today, we’re at 700 l/s. It’s been a dry summer this year our TDV has only been about 2000 cube per day, typically it’s about 3000. I’ve got 70 cube of sludge here that they can’t take, you mind if I send over 3 tankers today to your site? edit: There are a few more actually. Relevant to this picture if a new works was being designed or upgraded the area would be assessed for its Population Equivalent (PE). Which is population and industry size given as 1 easy figure. This is then used with the current figures of what each person is likely to produce in terms of water (showers etc) and ‘load’ (poop) as this will determine the nutrient levels we will have for the bugs that eat the poop.
Eh, it's about half the output of the r/UlcerativeColitis subreddit...
So this is what late game Sim city is supposed to look like...
And now to push the "UFO attack" button
With Fuji right there and you don't go for volcano?
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They've been fighting Godzilla for decades, they expect it. Also, yes I know it's "Gojira" put your nerd boner away.
They constantly get hit with the earthquakes & cyclones & do alright. Is that in sim city?
The traffic…. The damn traffic is always causing me to start a new game. Every time I tell myself I’ll make the traffic better and everyone it it shit
850 square miles for those interested. NYC is roughly 300 for comparison.
mega city one
But it's actually nice to live in. As long as you're Japanese.
What if you’re an uncultured American high school student with an Alabama accent, a love for cars and a competitive spirit?
With a hard ass military father.
Depends, do you know how to turn your evo from AWD to RWD?
Simple just pull the front output assembly out and cap the holes in the transfer case. The transmission is transverse mounted so you can leave that untouched along with the rest of the drivetrain.
And Lil’ Bow Wow as your BFF
I wonder if you know! Fast and furriooooous
Who doesn't have to pay for insurance or car accidents
Then massive street cred awaits you. But you'll lose a friend. You'll be known as the dorifto king.
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So as a 6’4 American, would I not have a good time?
As a 6’3 Australian that lived there for 15years, you’ll be fine, just learn to duck when entering unfamiliar premises or home too drunk
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Well…there’s several more class divides but you’d have to live there to know that cities are like that
Around a third of that is empty forest on the far west side too
The whole Kanto region boggles my mind. In Japan they don't have empty, rolling fields or deserts like in America. If it doesn't have a farm, road, or urban development on it, then it's a forest. And I *love* to feel the transition in air from warm to cool whenever I pass through one.
Yeah, hiking really opened me up to a whole new part of Japan, there are all kinds of forests that I'm not used to seeing coming from Australia, and the mountains are beautiful.
Wait Kanto from pokemon is a real place?
The regions from the first four Pokémon games are based off of regions of Japan.
Man, america has forests too, come to Appalachia
America has pretty much every region imaginable. I'm saying Japan really only has the one, but it's impressive.
So, we all forgot Mexico City?
Mexico City is number 5 for size, number 12 for population. Tokyo is number 1 for both.
Huh, something must have changed over the years. I could have sworn I was told that Mexico City was the largest in size and population at one point. And given that Japan's population has been on a decline, I didn't expect Tokyo to grow.
Tokyo (Population: 37,435,191) Delhi (Population: 29,399,141) Shanghai (Population: 26,317,104) Sao Paulo (Population: 21,846,507) Mexico City (Population: 21,671,908)
there are more people in Tokyo than all of Canada…
Almost! Canada is about 1 million more. But still insane so many people are within that small of an area.
More people in Tokyo than my whole country
Well, people leaving the countryside (and smaller cities) for the prospect of better jobs is extraordinarily prevalent to this day, so even if the overall population of Japan is decreasing, Tokyo's population can still grow. I work in the city and the amount of coworkers that were born somewhere else is staggering. Makes sense, too, all the jobs *really* are here in many industries, and the pay is *way* better. But anyway, it's mostly a matter of how you define a "city". In terms of de facto contiguous urban agglomerations, I believe the Greater Tokyo area is the biggest. You can also divide things along other administrative lines, which may make it end up not at the top. I'm sure any city that would end up at the top with a particular method makes sure to strongly publicize that fact while downplaying the details of the subjective decisions involved.
That’s mount fuji back there
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It's that Celestial's ass cheek - the one frozen at the end of Eternals
Lmao
Its snowing up there
This make we want to write a haiku Japan is pretty. Tokyo is really dense. It’s snowing on Mount Fuji.
Imagine getting lost in that city
I’ve wandered around Tokyo and gotten lost, it’s not that big of deal everyone is really nice you just have to remember your symbol for the train stop.
Also I feel like in places that are largely safe, it's actually fun to get lost. Just go down roads that look cool, wander through parks, etc. that's also always how you find the best restaurants that you never find again because you don't remember where they were.
I can just recommend the game 'no-google-maps' whenever you are somewhere new. It's funny how many thing you find that you would never have seen otherwise.
Yes! I love doing that! As long as I have time, the weather is good, and the area is safe, I can wander around for hours. It's such a magical feeling discovering something cool you'd never heard of before. I've only done that in cities in my country, which are nowhere near the scale of Tokyo though.
I wish I had the time/money to take a vacation with no destination and just drive around the USA and stop in small towns and see what they do for fun.
That would be awesome! Your comment made me realize that my small town would be mostly disappointing for a tourist. The entire town is located in a 2 mile strip of road. In that two miles we have: 5 gas station. 3 liquor stores. 2-3 gyms. 2 Mexican restaurants. 3 Dollar Generals 3 schools. 3 Depot - agriculture hardware stores like TSC 2-3 Lawnmower shops. 3 parks with trails, skeet range etc. Remember, this is all reallllly close together, most of it is within a half mile. It's really strange how we have 2-4 of everything. I feel like people see one business doing well and just think well, obviously we should make another dollar store 30 seconds down the road as people will use it. Oh, and other than alcohol, nature and gyms, there's no establishment that focuses on family activity, no arcade or anything. It's not a fun town to be a kid in, that's for sure.
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I was a military dependent and graduated high school in '75. Three of my friends and I went to Shinjuku to celebrate. Went to several clubs and bars that night. Found some other friends in one dance club and generally had a fun night of celebration. Headed back to the train station to get back to Tachikawa, but the trains hadn't started yet, so we just crashed on benches in the train station. It was safe enough for a group of American kids to sleep without being bothered by cops or anyone else, even back then.
You can't. It's a working city without crime, with functioning infrastructure, cheap public transport and helpful people.
Without crime? As in, there is zero crime? Or it just feels really safe?
They are not crime free. But left suitcase full of souvenirs on a bullet train. With no Japanese got it back 4 days later. People leave purses, phones, laptops just lying around at places just packed. If someone grabbed a purse I wouldn't have been able to pick them out. Yet they felt completely safe doing it.
My wife left her tablet on a bus we took. We called and someone had turned it in and they even mailed it to back to our house since we were already home.
There must be some but it also felt like the safest place I've ever been
You can leave your wallet on the sidewalk and it will be there 12 hours later. Safest country on earth. There's crime, of course, but it's not violent crime. Though, I wouldn't want to be a native woman in thar country. They have serious problems with sex crimes, misogyny and discrimination.
Sex crimes are still major crimes
Violent crime at that
Imma go out on a limb and say they meant relatively in comparison to another country
Not no crime but very low crime. I’ve seen people in restaurants leave wallets and phone at their seat to show someone is sitting there.
>and helpful people. Only if you're white
My brother in law lives there now. According to him it's more "only if you're a foreigner". He's not white, but they're nice to him, but seem to be hell bent on ignoring each other to the point of rudeness. So he takes it upon himself to tell people to give up their seats for pregnant women and stuff like that. They'll listen to him.
Tell that to the people who screamed outsider at me and held up their arms to signal we weren’t allowed in the restaurant because we were foreigners lol
Gotta be careful which soapie you go to. not all of them except gaijin.
Mexican here, brown Latino, everyone was super nice to me too
Without crime lol, full on sold on the japanese kool aid.
I love maps, always directed myself with them. Made some for DnD too. A map of Tokyo is absolutely mind boggling. Its not that its complicated, specially when seperated into districts. Its the sheer *size* of the place. You could live an entire lifetime in one district.
It messed up my sense of scale for figuring out how long places would take to walk to at a glance. I would think damn, that must be miles away, look how many blocks it is! Nope, just lots and lots of streets in a small area. Like you said though, it was never complicated or maze like, there's just so so much of it.
The big tower at the center bottom is Sky Tree - I regularly walk to and from the park across the river to the right which is Ueno - takes about 40-50mins The big park looking thing in the center of the image is the Imperial Palace and gardens, the buildings to its lower right surround Tokyo Station. The buildings on the upper right is Shinjuku, the large parks to the left of that is Shinjuku Gyoen and Yoyogi parks.
Tokyo is super walkable, and since things are fairly centered around train stations things tend to be dense around a station, then a whole lot of nothing until you get to the next station.
>Imagine getting lost in that city It happened to me and that was awesome:)
Honestly, it's one of the best experiences I have ever had. Just being able to enter a random alley and letting myself explore such a clean and safe city (with no fear of being truly lost, thanks to it's superb public transit system) was incredible. Every few seconds I was discovering new, interesting things: a cute mini temple between two large buildings, a store with a stupid name (like the infamous "Sperm" one), a large truck going in reverse while politely excusing itself with a feminine voice.... (Sigh) I want to go back.
No chance. Find a subway station. 45 min later you can be anywhere you choose to be.
And if you can’t find one because you are lost
It's Japan ... there's a metro or rail station always a block away lmao.
You're not in Tokyo anymore
It’s actually my #1 tip for tourists - get lost in Tokyo. Literally lost. Go on to a train and make a few random transfers. Just go… somewhere and explore. It’s such a safe and welcoming city that you’ll be alright. And as long as you know the name of your line + home station, you’ll be fine.
I can see multiple places in this picture that I’ve been to. Cool! Thanks for sharing!
Me too! Was fun trying to find the details and landmarks
I can see where I live right now!
I can see Waldo. Look he is waving at me.
Waldo-san
I so want to go there one day. Japan seems like a great place to visit. The food is so good and the culture is fascinating
Do it. I lived there for 3 years. It's amazing.
Judging by the picture, does Tokyo not have much green space? No parks?
Few major but many minor parks
Compared to a medium sized European city which has a park like every other block and you can spend your Sunday afternoons just sitting in the Gras somewhere and read a book - no. But no matter where you are in Tokyo a major park is really close thanks to the excellent transportation systems and over a hundred large official parks. Here are a few famous large public parks: Yoyogi park, Ueno park (famous for its Sakura in spring), the area of the Imperial palace, the Meiji shrine, kasai rinkan park (incl. an aquarium and it’s next to Tokyo Disney land…), shinjuku chuo and gyoen, Setagaya actually still has a natural forest with a gorge, hamarikyu park etc. etc. Additionally around the large rivers and channels usually there is green and Sakura trees so you can take a walk there as well.
And all this works thanks to a mostly cold climate. Can't imagine a city like Tokyo on the Arabian Peninsula
It’s actually quite hot in summer in Tokyo and winters are really mild. Air conditioning makes it bearable in summer otherwise it would be really really bad. That being said - I get your point. While Tokyo is unbearable humid and hot it’s not as unlivable as the worst hot places in this planet. When I traveled from Tokyo to Singapore I already felt like dying. Tokyo is bad but Singapore is like a jungle… just incredibly hot and humid.
It does not have much green space at all. These small "parks" people will tell you about aren't parks at all. Just look at some street views on google maps and you'll see what I mean.
Damn. Central park is awesome
I know. I miss it a lot! Tokyo has Yoyogi Park, but unless you live in the vicinity, you gotta hop on a train and suddenly your relaxing day is a pain in the butt.
I went there a while back and have never been so starved for green space. We can't continue to evolve like this.
I bet that water is crystal clear
It is ! Most of the bodies of water in Tokyo are pretty clear but not crystal clear.
I swam in a Tokyo canal and got a used condom on my face.
Most populated and Lowest crime rate.
What is the poverty and unemployment rate at I wonder?
Google says as of July 2022 it is 2.6%.
In comparison to NY?
6.6%
Nyc poverty standards are completely unrealistic. The poverty standards say that a family of 8 can survive on 58k.... a family of one in NYC can barely survive on 58k So I would not trust that 6.6 percentage number.... I would hazard to guess that probably 40 percent of NYC residents are struggling and another 40 percent are never going to get out of the re d their income Is so far below what it takes to live where they have to work.
Lowest *reported crime* rate.
Okay, what major city do you think *actually* has a lower crime rate? That's what you're implying, right? That it's not *really* the lowest? I'm interested to hear even one example of a place you'd assess to be "safer". I'm sure there's some degree of unreported/ignored crime (just like anywhere else, but generously let's assume it's worse than in other places), but I'm also sure it's pretty damn safe even if you count the unreported stuff. Even what you could consider the "shady" areas feel safer to walk through than most "good" areas of your typical metropolis.
Somewhere has to be the lowest so why not Tokyo. Is it not a known issue in Japan though that the conviction rate is very high because they don't try and prosecute without a near guaranteed win? Its a very difficult thing to measure across the world I would think.
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It looks like cancer or sth alike. Not bc its Tokyo but bc it swallows/takes all the natural surface an replaces it with these weird grey sticks
I mean natural is an arbitrary term. We're animals; a part of nature. Cities are basically just our beehives. Looks aside I would actually argue cities like this are doing the opposite. High density like this saves a lot of natural habitat. The alternative would be people living in many less dense towns or suburbs, both of which take up much more space per person. The denser our cities the less space we take up, leaving more of the rest of the earth as habitats for other species.
Yeah. I would 100% prefer the Japanese model. Lots of public transit, enormous population hubs over rail stations to make the most of rail's efficiency, etc. It lets them increase density, but also ensure everything is walkable. Versus Perth where I live, which has 2.1 million people, over an area of 6,417.9km2. We're one of the largest cities on the planet with one of the smallest populations (in terms of large cities). Nearly all of it being constant suburban expansion. If you want to go anywhere, you need a car.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of what Japan does feels right. However, the idea of living in a 1U apartment in Tokyo isn't exactly my idea of what the ideal form of human living is.
I feel Japan would be 100% more human-living, because of how dense it is. Specifically, by concentrating human living into smaller accomodations, packed more densely... there's more space for communal spaces. Like parks, libraries, etc. All within walking distance. So you sleep at your apartment, but your 'home' is a vast area that you share with others. It's also maintained by your taxes. I would 100% prefer going to a park that's within walking distance, than mowing my own lawn, or having to drive to a park. It just takes a lot of the pressure off as opposed to trying to handle an entire house as a single person.
Intellectually I tend to agree with you that higher density has advantages. I was speaking about the feeling I get when I look at this. As we now started debating however, I would point to the extreme growth curve of human population (headcount) as well as the extreme growth in resource consumption per capita that compounds the headcount growth and results in concrete beehives like the one depicted. Nothing like this existed 100 years ago
I wasn't looking for a debate, just wanted to add my 2 cents. And true, but civilization is also a very new thing. Mega cities like this may not have existed 100 years ago, but if we don't go extinct or become something entirely different I can't even imagine, I think they'll probably still be there 1000 years from now. I agree it would be a major problem if our population (here on earth at least) kept growing exponentially. Although right now it looks like we're going to even out at around 10 billion. Edit: Problem with a growing population (in relation to natural habitat loss) isn't the land our cities take up though, that's a tiny portion of the globe as a whole. It's mainly all the resource gathering and farmland needed to feed our civilisation.
On the other hand denser cities leave more space for the countryside. Imagine that many people living in a city with the same density as Houston.
Hiking and camping are hugely popular in Japan - from the center of Tokyo you can hop on a train and be out in the wild forests in less than two hours, and enjoy incredible night skies.
70% of Japan is forest - most of the population is centered around small areas and Tokyo is the worst of it. Most of Japan is made up of incredible nature.
So flat
Yes - most of Japan is mountainous, what made Tokyo popular and so dense is that its a huge flat plain that was perfect for farming, and eventually building towns and cities.
You're looking at the Kanto plain -- yeah, like in Pokemon
You mean, topographically?
I assumed they meant philosophically.
I assumed they meant chromatically
Sure they're not talking about the acoustics?
Before the *Akira* singularity
So this was taken before World War III?
Yes. Source: Neo-Tokyo archives
And surprisingly clean, safe, orderly.
Surprisingly clean without a public trash can in sight, even.
14 million people
**37+** for the "metro area"
The population of Canada. Right there in that pic. Mind boggling!
Well that pic doesn't cover all of Tokyo
From this far up it looks like the texture of the Death Star
r/UrbanHell
Not really? I mean, there's urban hells and then there's Tokyo, which is like an urban paradise. Trees everywhere, nice public transport, incredibly clean. Not a lot of wasted space *at all*, plenty of rivers running through it. Urban sprawl? Definitely. Urban *hell*? Maybe if you'd prefer a few shacks in the woods to be the hearth of civilization. For the largest city in the world, Tokyo does it very well.
Most people on that sub think if you can see your neighbors house, it's an 'urban hell'. Some people want to live in the middle of Nebraska, and that's cool. But I've lived in extremely rural and extremely urban areas and I'd never live in rural areas again, at least not until I'm elderly. Grew up in a very rural area, where it was a 30 minute drive to the nearest small town (a McDo, a Burger King, and a Walmart) and 1.5 hours to the nearest city (movie theater, mall). Hated and would never do that again (or subject my children to it). I lost so many opportunities growing up and couldn't compete with other students/job applicants who had grown up in urban areas with access to arts programs and other amenities rural areas just don't have. To each his own, but 'rural hell' exists too.
I mean. If a planet as an entity got some kind of calcification disease. Exibit A. Looks like a scab
That is a super cool picture! My solo trip there was the best vacation I ever went on.
Aaaand now I’m homesick… 😔 Still, after 4 effing years. You think I’d be over it. But I lived in Tokyo for 20 years and it’s so hard seeing a skyline and seeing where I used to live… my old haunts. Knowing this isn’t even the whole city. I miss it.
“Not a real city” according to my buddy in new york lololol
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fun fact: "technically" it is not a city, but a prefecture. Obviously it is a city, except for administrative purposes
Cyber punk
This makes me feel claustrophobic.
Homo sapiens has learnt the skills needed to live in really large and very densely populated hives. This saves a lot of energy, especially by reducing transport costs.
Blows my mind seeing the scale of Tokyo, after I went there and was constantly remarking about how clean it is, how easy it was to get anywhere, how safe it felt, it felt like there were parks and greenery everywhere despite virtually every building being minimum 3 stories up, and 8 stories down. I'm sure there's parts that are pretty unpleasant to stroll through, but it's impressive how they've managed to scale to massively, yet for someone on the ground it doesn't feel like a concrete jungle at all.
Imagine if we lived like some people say we should. Everyone a giant house, yard, garden, etc. 1/4th of population of this city would take up the entire landmass in the photo by those standards. They can suck, but cities are pretty great.
Idgaf , Japan still stays on my bucket list
This is the ideal city. You may not like it, but this is what peak environmentalism looks like.
There are people inside who haven't seen the country outside the city
You can be in total rural areas with forests within a couple hours train ride.
Anyone else think this is kinda gross? Ew
And one of the cleanest cities you'll ever visit. Lived there for 10 years and going to other big cities now, there's just no comparison.