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Comment by agibsonccc | Hacker News Reader

I'm just going to say (my own experience only: disclaimer), SF is significantly worse.

I've lived in tokyo a year now and SF 2.5 years and I don't regret my move at all.

The guys lying in the street like that (even if not homeless) is actually culturally accepted. You see people sleeping in all sorts of places in Tokyo.

I won't comment on whether that's "good" or "bad" but it's definitely different than the US. I still heavily prefer Tokyo despite that (I don't see it that often in practice)

The worst areas are by far Roppongi and Shibuya. Admittedly, I don't go to Shinjuku as much.

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But you know, those big knobby things on the sills in the tunnels from the station to the Hyatt Hotel? Those are there to keep people from sleeping there (they weren't there in the 80s when I lived there - and they were added about the same time all the green phone banks by the station were taken out).

But, you know, it's still warm! And people go there. And they are kicked by some of the teenage thugs at night and rousted and moved by the police. And are often found dead by the phone banks (all of two last time I was there) closer to the hotel, above ground).

I've never lived in SF. And I was friends with a couple of structural-choice-homeless guys in Japan. But - still - having to step-over or recusitate dead people every morning seems grubby to me.

EDIT: I said "the station". I meant Shinjuku. I actually lived out past Wako, and commuted to north of Shinagawa by a bus I picked up in Shibuya every day. There is no "the station", so I apologize.

> The guys lying in the street like that (even if not homeless) is actually culturally accepted.

It isn’t. It, however, is precisely what the blog talks about: newcomers explaining things away as “cute cultural quirks”.

I'll give you that it's not considered "polite" but I guess I should say it's "expected"?

Let me correct myself a bit. I guess what I should have said was public places? For example cafes or mcdonalds you can find tons of people sleeping in there, another example is train stations.

Obviously yes these are very different things, hence my correction.

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