Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere? | Hacker News Reader

Can Tokyo’s charms be replicated elsewhere?

economist.com

116 pointsbookofjoe167 comments

The linked article focuses on the physical features of Tokyo. For me, even more attractive is the economic dynamism that they enable.

I moved to Tokyo in 1983 and have lived there and in nearby Yokohama ever since. Until 2005, I worked as a freelancer—mostly translation, but also advertising copywriting and other related occupations. I did my work at home, but I was often out and about in Tokyo to visit clients, attend narration recording sessions, visit libraries and bookstores, buy computer supplies in Akihabara, etc. Over the years, I interacted with hundreds of other people working freelance in the city: graphic designers, fashion designers, recording engineers, narrators, musicians, editors, photographers, videographers, other translators and writers, and various kinds of agents who made their living bringing together other freelancers to work on large projects. Our meetings would be held in coffeeshops, in taxis, on benches in train stations and parks, and in offices on upper floors of the zakkyo buildings mentioned in the article.

In those days, before the Internet changed everything, that kind of freelance work and lifestyle seemed to be possible only in a city like Tokyo. I don’t think any other city in Japan, except maybe Osaka, had a large and diverse enough population to create a similarly productive dynamism. I, at least, was certain that I would not have been able to get as much high-paying, interesting work if I had not lived within commuting distance of central Tokyo.

Since 2005, while still employed in Tokyo, I have been working in academia and have lost touch with that freelance economy. The Internet has probably made it even more dynamic in some ways, but I suspect that it depends much less on the physical urban landscape.

Like Hemingway in post-WW1 Paris or Hunter S Thompson et al in 1960s Haight Ashbury, one part of it is the city/neighbourhoods, one part culture, and the biggest thing is the people who create the culture and local businesses that make the neighbourhoods interesting.

If you hang out with interesting people (or in modern times share their information networks) then you'll find these cultural hot spots.

It's worth it for major cities to invest in fostering this sort of thing but often it happens naturally as a side effect of circumstance (post war Paris was cheap and booming with fun bars/cafes and plenty of artists, SF/Berkley was in the center of the free-love movement, Tokyo was in the Japanese capitalist tech+cultural boom/etc).

That being said, almost every major city has interesting people, you just have to find them. Some cities have much more than others. Some aren't even cities but unique towns/small communities. And some cities are riddled with poor planning or active policies that are anti-fun/creative/risk taking and scare away interesting people.

To add: I recently read a book about the the history of cocktails about how a few big European cities experienced a second cultural boom (after WW1) when the US started Prohibition in the 1930s. Most of the best bartenders moved to Paris/London/etc to open bars and ply their trade, which spread cocktail culture widely and created some legendary bars in Europe.

A good example of how local political decisions can scare away talent and culture (with good intentions of course).

Seems similar to Jane Jacob’s vision for Greenwich Village(at least, haha). Anyone knows if parts of NYC (besides academia —-grant-drenched NYU, Columbia,&c) had that organic dynamism, at certain points in time, maybe?

Anyone know parts of the world?

Thanks for sharing your story. It’s very nostalgic.

Yeah but then you need something that people seem to get upset over.

Culture.

And that doesn’t mean getting stoned or acting weird or being narcissistic af, but having some basic moral and virtuous behavior.

You see old people come out and start cleaning the stairs after a rain. I saw it first hand and thought wow this would never happen in the US. You see people get in line and let the people onboard the train out before going in. Not gonna happen in the US. You can drink alcohol outside but in the US people would just be drunks everywhere and trash the place. And they trash the place without drinking.

So no.

You can’t replicate that sort of dynamic without people acting a certain way. Basic decency would be a good start.

Equally a fault of the people as it is the urban environment which shapes them…

> You can drink alcohol outside but in the US people would just be drunks everywhere and trash the place. And they trash the place without drinking.

Maybe if 95%+ of Americans weren’t indoctrinated since WWII with the concept of “a single family home and white picket fence” as the American Dream (and anything else is to be thought of as less than), Americans would grow up with a sense of and respect for shared space and environment. Instead we usually look at anything that is not our home/backyard/frontyard as “not ours” and thus “not important”. We see this in the lack of flagship public plazas/squares that you can usually find in even small European/South American/Asian towns, but also the continued shrinking of funding for libraries, neighborhood parks, etc.

If there’s no public realm in the first place, it’s no wonder most who grow up have no concept or respect for it. It’s a vicious cycle, and one many Americans (regardless of political affiliation) will insist is the “only” way, and actively fight anything else, since it’s all many know.

I think you're describing the Midwest. People clear sidewalks and driveways for each other after a snow, unasked and uncompensated. People let each other off public transportation before crowding on. And... there are drunks everywhere. So two out of three.

But what I'm aiming at is this: in less urbanized areas of the United States, the sort of shared ideas that allow successful coexistence exist. It's largely the major cities where you cannot find it.

My experience in America (even up here in the "mean" northeast) is that we do tend to treat our families and neighbors very decently, which suggests that we're not exactly devoid of compassion.

However, I believe this is different than what the parent poster is talking about.

The parent poster refers not to a generalized lack of compassion from Americans, but a peculiar lack of respect for shared, public spaces.

I think it's an interesting distinction.

It's like we have a very focused version of communalism. Most of us instinctively want to help those in our "clans" - friends, neighbors, family. But we see much less value in places and institutions that are shared by the wider public: libraries, streets, town squares, etc.

this diffusion of responsibility for shared spaces or public spaces is one of the peculiar things the USA will share with the PRC.

> It's largely the major cities where you cannot find it.

I would argue differently, and say that it's entirely a factor of density. The more people that are crammed into a small area, the more you will see the spectrum of human behavior in any given situation.

So, in the midwest you might see people clearing sidewalks and driveways for each other - I'm more familiar with the HOA that sends threatening letters to people for not shoveling fast enough. But you don't see both those things at the same time, so you can choose to focus on whichever you prefer.

In my experience in a large US city, people are incredibly kind and very much look out for each other, even strangers. I have many times seen strangers helping each other in situations, both minor and serious, and neighbors even more so. And sure, yes, I've seen people acting badly, but in general from living in both part of the country, people in the city are far and away nicer and more concerned about the welfare of those around them.

> I would argue differently, and say that it's entirely a factor of density. The more people that are crammed into a small area, the more you will see the spectrum of human behavior in any given situation.

Then why are New York and Chicago so much worse in this regard than Tokyo? They’re all big, dense, highly populated cities.

As someone above said - culture. As to why the culture is different between say, NYC and Tokyo, well there’s many factors involved.

But as some people say when describing certain things in NYC, “it’s why we can’t have nice things”.

>NYC and Tokyo, well there’s many factors involved.

And the most obvious one is demographic composition.

Probably the most taboo thing to say too.

I myself prefer the diversity of NYC over the monoculture of most East Asian cities (and I say this as an East Asian myself), but failing to recognize that both models have pros and cons because of political correctness is stupid.

Manhattan sucks but NYC has great neighborhoods

Doesn't describe any part of the Midwest I'm familiar with...

It is possible that we're both right. Do you mind sharing where in the Midwest you have experience?

Ohio. People there are vile, especially in Akron and the smaller factory towns.

And Oklahoma, outside of Tulsa.

My anecdote to counter yours:

I moved from the PNW to Rhode Island for four years, and then to Ohio. Moving to the Northeast was absolutely a culture shock for both of us, with “colder” and less helpful people in general. Over time, we discovered that the people in rural areas were still friendly, and the city people would open up after they got to know you, but there was a very noticeable lack of trust or respect in Providence. As an example, I remember one of those electric scooter companies pulled out of Providence because they couldn’t stop our citizens from throwing the scooters into the Bay.

We moved to Cincinnati next and it’s a night and day difference. Friendly service at businesses, people helping each other in snowstorms, etc. I’ve helped to care for my elderly neighbors since day one and we always get help when we need it as well.

Sounds like you are white Protestant. Cincinnati folk are really friendly to people who look just like them. For the rest of us, not so much. I got tired of them telling me to go back where I came from, so I did.

I lived in Akron for several years, and though I wouldn't say people were vile — that's pretty strong — I would say it's one of the places in the Midwest where I observed the least concern for one another. It ranked low on the "do people put away their shopping carts" scale. Of course, I couldn't really afford to live in the better parts of town. (I don't mean to say everyone was a self-absorbed jerk, though; I had some really good neighbors.)

No experience with Oklahoma.

People don't like to hear it, but a high-trust society is enabled by homogeneity.

Look at Japan's demographics, and opposition to foreign religions, languages, etc. They don't allow "the world" to recreate itself inside them, and the conflict and distrust (Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam) that that brings.

This is probably a just-so story. Australia is, by the numbers, a high-trust country, and is more diverse than Canada. Both are higher-trust than Japan. Contrary to your claim here, Japan and the US have in fact very similar surveyed levels of trust. What seems actually to be the case is that remarkably high-trust countries, surveyed at, I don't know, several SD above the mean, are rare. Several of them happen to be Nordic, and people extrapolate from there.

I'm sure being ethnically homogenous does smooth things over for Norway. But so does being small and galactically wealthy from extractive industry.

Singapore is a high-trust society without the homogeneity.

Yes though increase in diversity brings higher demand for authority because it seems to be the only thing that can bring order. Some would call Singapore "authoritarian" (how compatible is it with "Democracy" of the West? Or post-Imperial Japan for that matter -- the main topic here). They invest energy into micromanaging it.[1]

There was a lot of racial tension[2] in Singapore before Lee Kuan Yew straightened them out. Mandates on what languages to use for what ethnicities, with English being the main language, seems to have worked. As well as a racial quota system to prevent natural self-sorting into ethnic groups, and to enforce integration.

"To prevent conflicts and ethnic isolation (Singapore is the safest city in the world according to Gallup) ethnic quotas are mandatory.The distribution of public housing is carried out based on these quotas and it is impossible to find a block of apartments in which the percentage of Chinese, Indians and Malay people gives preference to one of the groups (with regard to the country’s population). And since the construction and ownership of the property are strictly regulated, given the lack of space on the island, it is extremely hard to escape the system. These quotas are also applied within the administration itself, in businesses and even in some activities such as leisure.To date, the system has been a success that has almost prevented any sign of segregation. However, the model depends on a system of surveillance, punishment and repression, which feels somewhat Orwellian, but without which, its implementation would not be feasible. This is, paradoxically, a society that voluntarily relinquishes certain freedoms related to the way in which citizens interact with one another, in order to guarantee their coexistence."[3]

[1]https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Ethnic-and-religious-violenc...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_race_riots_in_Singapore

[3]https://tomorrow.city/a/forced-integration-plan-singapore

Does the high trust stem from interpersonal solidarity or draconian persecution of misbehaviour?

Difficult to say probably the latter considering the previous cases of racial tensions in Singapore but if you want a non-authoritarian example I think Canada is a good one.

> draconian persecution of misbehaviour

Like banning chewing gum. And the death penalty for bringing in drugs?

At the business and public administration sphere it’s a carefully crafted (and top-down) Anglo-Chinese culture.

Homogeneity is necessary but not sufficient. Italy is pretty homogenous (95% Italians) but it’s not a particularly high trust society.

Correct

I hope you don't mean racial homogeneity, because that would be a load of _equine excrement_

If you didn't, homogeneity really isn't the best word to convey the idea that social trust comes from long-standing, slow moving cultural traditions.

Even then there are counter examples but it could be one of those 'necessary but not sufficient' situations

Like it or not, racial tensions fuel a lot of conflict inside nations. America itself has had a lot of racial tension based conflict in its short lifespan than many other countries much older than it. I'm not condoning it of course, just explaining it.

>I hope you don't mean racial homogeneity, because that would be a load of _equine excrement_

I'd argue that Mumbai/India or Lagos/Nigeria are overwhelmingly racially homogeneous. So there must be some additional factor beyond racial homogeneity.

Only if you see "races" as the American-style social construct and not as people in India and Africa see it, which is at a tribal level. I had an hour-long discussion with a Ugandan once that explained to me the major tribes in Uganda, and he says that anyone can tell the tribes apart just by look and dialect. A European looks at Lagos and sees "Nigerians", a Nigerian looks at Lagos and sees Yoruba, Igbo, etc. The Indians also have a brutal caste system and thousands of sub-dialects originating from provincial clan systems and would never call any of their major cities "homogeneous".

Europeans also had a lot more tribal-based racism in the past; southern vs. northern Italians, Scottish vs. Welsh, even sub-clans inside both of those nations, etc.

I agree

Of course, everything starts with the people. They can have beautiful things on the open since no one's gonna trash it.

I miss how Japanese civilians try not to get in the way of others. When I'm just simply walking past slow people, they apologize thinking they had been blocking my way. Never happens where I live where people have a misplaced sense of entitlement. Where I live, people don't even give a single thought about their car's loud music system and motorcycle mufflers.

Social programs that take care of the poor are part of that. Affordable housing is part of that.

Decency is for people who have things to lose. If you're already a "dreg" why would you behave well?

There are countries that are a lot poorer that have higher trust than many wealthy countries though.

I honestly think it comes down to education and distillation of values. Can America honestly say that it teaches its children to be considerate of others, respect public places, and other such things? Certain groups of people adopt these attitudes by cultural osmosis but it isn't institutionalised nor supported as an ideal by the larger community. In Japan it is. Even homeless people in Japan keep their spaces tidy etc it is crazy to see.

Edit: and I'm not trying to target the US here, I don't think these values are explicitly taught in most western countries. Think of things like school kids are expected to clean the school up before they can go home. That teaches people to behave a certain way from a very young age in regards to communal spaces.

Japan doesn’t have particularly generous social programs, and has plenty of poor people.

This is achievable with cultural education and values being taught from families and schools. It's not that much effort, but it may look unfeasible in the beginning.

Culture starts at home and in the family. No thanks to state sponsored cultural re-education.

If half the families are broken, what do we do?

This doesn’t reflect my observations in the US.

I see old people tending to their house all the time. Even sweeping the sidewalk and other public spaces.

And some states allow public drinking and it’s not a bunch of drunks everywhere.

I’m starting to wonder where you lived in the US.

Most US cities are like this. Not the burbs or the rural areas which in my experience is all about me me me.

Most burbs or the rural areas are like this. Not the cities which in my experience is all about me me me.

this trash culture you speak of is mostly in the big cities. there are still good parts of the US.

Tokyo today is unusually liveable—safe, clean, functional and vibrant—for a megacity of its size: 37m in its greater metropolitan area, including 14m people in the central wards.

Safe streets are the key.

Completely agree.

Safe streets allow for so many great things in a city. Unsafe streets mean everything had to also factor in security which completely destroys lots of potential business options from being offered most easily.

A minor example of this would be the vending machines everywhere including in out of sight places which we all know would be destroyed/robbed in many Western cities.

While I lived there, it was also nice that if I went out for a late night combini snack run, I was the scariest thing around in most parts of the city. It may all just be in my head but I've never felt that secure walking around alone late at night in any city here in the US.

Japan is also one of the least diverse developed countries with well over 90% of inhabitants being Yamato Japanese. It is unsurprising that it would be safe, clean, and functional.

Is it really that unique? I just looked up the Czech Republic to find that it is 95% Czech[1] but nobody goes around writing articles about whether it is possible to replicate how safe, clean, and functional the Czech Republic is.

Finland also appears to be about 90% Finnish (with 5% Swedish).

Portugal appears to be 95% Portuguese.

South Korea is also over 90%.

Ireland is 85% Irish.

I'm tired of Googling but the more I look, the less I think your point has any validity at all.

Finland and South Korea are absolutely held as a model of civilized society. Very low crime rates, very clean and very orderly. Don't know about Czech but it's possible that being culturally homogeneous is a necessary but insufficient condition, after all I'm sure most of us can name some very homogenous countries that are an absolute nightmare to live in. That said, Dubai and Singapore are also very safe and orderly but they are very culturally diverse, so who knows...

Does anyone know what Australia is like? I hear good things about it, and it is very homogeneous.

> Does anyone know what Australia is like? I hear good things about it, and it is very homogeneous.

Never been there, but Australia has a very low murder rate (0.9 homicide victims per 100k people). But it's also not what I'd call homogeneous, as 30% of residents there were born overseas, higher than the US (14%). Not as much ethnic diversity nationwide, but some of its cities are extremely diverse. 43.2% of Sydney is foreign-born, the 3rd highest percent of any city in the world, with there being Chinese, Indian, Lebanese, Fijian, Korean, Nepalese, Ghanaian and several other communities located inside it.

Canada is another very safe place (murder rate is 2.0 per 100k) and 23% of residents are foreign born. It's also somewhat ethnically diverse as well, with 30.2% of the population being visible minorities. There's also linguistic fractionalization between Quebec and the rest of the country. 49.0% of Toronto is foreign born, the 2nd highest percentage in the world, and Vancouver's not far behind at 42.5% (4th highest in the world).

So Singapore, Australia and Canada are 3 examples of diverse countries with incredibly little violent crime (Singapore actually has slightly less murder per capita than Japan). That's not to say diversity can't result in conflict, but those examples do show that it doesn't have to result in it, and that diverse, peaceful societies can and do exist.

All of those places are very safe, more so than most of United States. I'd add my country, Poland to that. Street level crime is very rare.

I don’t know about those European places but South Korea and Taiwan are also safe… maybe not as clean.

Yeah a lot of those places are aldo pretty safe. Not that it proves a point but it doesn't prove yours as well.

It's not a race thing, it's a trust and culture thing.

There are diverse countries that have similar levels of safety like Singapore.

If your government sucks, laws are poorly enforced or even maliciously enforced - there is low trust among the people, no respect for public spaces and no one follows the social norms.

Singapore's achieves "harmony" in their diverse city-state through severe authoritarian control. There's harmony because the state dictates their vison of harmony which all must abide by.

Make no mistake. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Eventually the outcome of authoritarian harmony comes actual harmony as people become used to the rules and follow those rules regardless of whether or not they exist.

The freedom to shit on the street in San Francisco shouldn't be a freedom that is valued At all.

Let's not conflate people being clean because the government is notoriously lethal and is tracking your social standing with people being clean because they've been taught from a young age to be respectful to the environment.

Authoritarian 'harmony' doesn't imply any sort of longevity.

Sure. But make sure you also conflate freedom with people dying from the opioid epidemic, the huge drug problem in San Francisco and homeless encampments everywhere and the complete and utter failure to build one rail line connecting LA and SF.

All of these problems occur because the US values individual freedoms over central authority. You will note:

Freedom doesn't imply any sort of longevity Either.

The problem with the west is that freedom is viewed as a sort of moral truth.

People assume that an authoritarian society is bad and that a society with freedom is good.

The truth is far more complex. What I say is an aspect of the truth, as is what you say.

What truly should absolutely never be conflated is the idea that one of these truths overrides the other.

Benjamin Franklin said it best imho: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

A lot of the modern emphasis on explaining away people's behaviour as an inevitable outcome of their poverty/race/culture/history (depending on who you ask) is a leading cause of a lot of the problems we see imho.

One of the core beliefs our society is based on is that God gave us free will so we can make choices. While some degree of corrective was maybe necessary as current and historical wrongs do impact us today, it has gone too far imo. Someone at some point of time has to break a cycle by making a choice to be a better person.

Maybe at first. Singapore had to make lots of tough decisions early on, and they fixed it early. Problems which still plague their neighbors to this day.

I say today, the base economic situation of the people and the disparity of wealth is a bigger factor to what makes a country -overall safe or unsafe, which is what the thread is about and what I was replying to.

Safety first.

When measured by income or accumulated wealth, Singapore has huge inequality.

When measured by things like access to good education, infrastructure, housing, things look more equal.

A big temper to any real authoritarian tendencies in Singapore is that it's easy for our inhabitants to vote with their feet: people can and do leave. Thanks to some special diplomatic deals, Singaporeans have special access to working visas for the US, too. So Singapore can only be as authoritarian as McDonald's: there's no vote for what goes onto a Big Mac, but if you don't like it, you can always go to Burger King.

Well said, I rarely compliment replies but I feel that description is worth bookmarking.

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm a big fan of subsidiarity and local decisions making, exactly so that when people vote with their feet, they don't have to travel too far to get meaningful change.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

It sounds like a boring, middle-of-the-road principle; but it gives you such radical sounding conclusions as 'a federal minimum wage is bonkers, why couldn't the counties (or even cities) handle that issue by themselves?'

Singapore was also blessed with an extremely capable leader in Lee Kuan Yew[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew

Yup.

Singapore routinely cracks down on any sort of “racial disharmony” and has zero issues with race based rules like banning public drinking in Little India.

The government fully admits the racial mix creates unique problems they always have to be on top of.

I’m sure it would be messier and less safe without that but every other supermajority East Asian city is also very safe compared to Western Europe or North America. Hong Kong before and after handover, Seoul, Beijing, all safe. All far poorer than Chicago which is much more violent.

So we need to bring back public beatings (canings) ?

I live in Singapore. Yes, it's also incredibly safe, clean, and functional. It's a very different place from Tokyo, though.

Chiang Mai in Thailand also seemed safe and trustworthy when I was there a few months ago: eg the locals casually left stuff outside and on their motorbikes, petty theft of unattended items seems to be no problem.

Our neighbour Malaysia seems to have more problems with these issues. Looking into the causes of the differences between countries would be interesting. I suspect in Singapore our development is at least partially the result of deliberate social engineering by LKY.

I can also tell you that after 40 years of 'actually existing socialism' vs 'social market economy', that East Germany had markedly lower trust and safety than West Germany. And the wounds still haven't healed. Switzerland has even higher trust.

You can see similar gaps in Taiwan/Hong Kong vs mainland China.

>There are diverse countries that have similar levels of safety like Singapore.

Any examples for this statement?

The Japanese government, like France, does not track ethnicity stats. When you see a number like this it means Japanese citizens, not “ethnic Japanese”.

(Ethnic Japanese are nearly the same people as Koreans too, but that doesn’t stop them being racist against each other, so it is all kind of made up.)

There’s also very many more immigrants in Tokyo these days.

I didn't say "Japanese citizens", I said "Yamato Japanese", the ethnic group.

Yes, but if that number came from the government, it means Japanese citizens even if your source thought it meant something else.

Why is that unsurprising? The implication being that racial diversity makes dysfunction, uncleanliness, and danger more likely (less surprising).

If anything, it's probably cultural diversity.

At least in America it’s the combination of racial diversity and racial inequality. That certainly creates a lot of justification for some crimes (when the system is perceived to be rigged against you anyways).

Japan was just as monoethnic as it is now when it was sending their own soldiers to die in the Philippines, when its guards murdered a British merchant for not yielding the way[1], or when it executed christians by thousands. Any long-lived country ends up with a list of great or terrible achievements, regardless of its ethnic makeup. It's a silly argument.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namamugi_Incident

They're safe because their police make the US police look human. The amount of ways you can accidentally end up in prison with some extreme sentences is uncountable. I'd recommend watching any of the traveling channels to see their warnings on it for foreigners. Punishments for something even as simple as public intoxication can be comparatively severe when juxtaposed with, for example, the US where you might spend the night in a drunk tank if you're rowdy, or sent safely on your way with a loved one if you're cooperative.

Through extremely tough laws streets become safer. It's opposite most of America in the sense that we have a large degree of leniency built into our laws that seems to be getting more lenient every election cycle. Stuff like no bail, letting people off with warnings, "court dates" that you're responsible for showing up to would NEVER fly in Japan. Statistically criminals will commit crimes again if let out even on minor infractions. Japan seems to have realized this and capitalized on it. Speaking of capital...their capital punishment system is pretty crazy. Their prisons are also draconian even when compared to the garbage prisons we have in the US. Their closest approximation may be Russian prison in it's style of punishment. The sheer level of fear people in Japan must live with when faced with these punishments is clearly enough to keep society polite.

Japan is one of the ultimate "tough on crime" examples in a western-approaching nation...and it works. Well. People have this idyllic view of Japan for some reason and it's understandable why. From a distance it's beautiful. I'm not convinced the tradeoffs to achieve their society are worth it (extremely tough anti-crime law, collectivism, salarymanship, etc). Moreover, I don't think the people who idealize (really, fetishize) Japan want these changes either.

I have a feeling you've never actually been there.

They do have an issue with forced confessions, but you're much more likely to be arrested or worse (shot) in the USA for no reason.

But beyond that, this is an over simplification of something that stems from multiple things, not some singular root reason.

And if you want data, look no further than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... for why your take is absolutely bonkers.

We have the highest incarceration rate by far, so why aren't we safer than Japan?

> And if you want data, look no further than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... for why your take is absolutely bonkers.

This doesn't refute the OP's claims, and I think could support them. OP is saying (to paraphrase) that Japan's tough on crime stance is a deterrent, and so there is less crime, and so fewer people incarcerated.

Also, I don't think a reasonable person is worried about getting arrested or shot going to the US. I'm sure I might be possible to make it happen, but as a Canadian, I have never been worried about either of those things going to the US.

I met multiple individuals on my last trip to Australia who commented on how they felt extremely unsafe in the USA (hearing gunshots at night, seeing shootings on the news). Some were native Australians, others were from places abroad, such as Japan.

Have you been to the US? Do you feel that way? Definitely the news tries to frightened everyone into watching more. I don't think that's too reflective of reality.

I'm a native born and raised in the US, so I'm used to it for the most part. It wasn't till I visited other countries that I realized how strange it is that we are comfortable around it.

I feel much safer on my visits to Australia, for a variety of reasons.

I remember last month landing in LAX and immediately noting how much more "intimidating" the police look here. It's so military / macho, centered around getting the bad guys versus helping folks.

Police in Australia probably aren't saints, but they look more like helpers than anything else (yellow vests, etc.).

Also, I'm never afraid to walk around random streets, alleys, etc. there. It's just. . . different.

Of course, Tokyo is on a whole other level beyond that.

But the point is, I don't have to worry about mass shootings or gun violence in those countries, whereas here I might just be going to Walmart and end up dead. Or I could be at home, and the police decide to do a wellness check on me. Feels like I'm basically playing a roulette game. Odds are low, but never zero, and they seem to be getting worse and worse.

https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-s...

The intentional homicide rate in the US is 7 times that of Australia (6.3/100k population vs 0.9/100k), and 21 times that of Japan (0.3/100k).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...

You might want to redefine what a reasonable person is. There are tons of Canadians afraid of the police but it’s very likely they don’t look physically like you. You have to get out of your bubble to find them.

I don’t think any place in the world comes close to the USA in terms of its prison(labor) camps. It has the highest per capita rate of incarceration on the planet. So I don’t think his comparison is warranted.

But I’m actually in Japan right now, and while I definitely did fetishize Japan to some extent this trip has not been pleasant.

Last night I went out for a call in front of my Airbnb so I wouldn’t wake up my baby that sleeping.

I spent 10 minutes with police because apparently I was suspicious. He asked me about my reason for being here my visa and all the other shit the much nicer border guards asked me. And because they were backwards retards he wrote it on a piece of paper instead of checking it on a computer. Giving him a Taiwan if that included my passport number was not enough I just had to go inside and wake the kid. BTW had I not been in front of my Airbnb, I wouldn't have been able to fetch my Passport and I would probably have been taken to the ward. Just for being a "suspicious person in the neighbourhood". That's like being a black person in the US except that you don't get beat up or shot.

The proof of rental wasn’t enough either and when I went inside he followed me without even asking which would be illegal in most civilized places. Yes he was polite and he didn’t yell at me but he was still a retarded racist PoS.

Mind you that police in Japan can and will put foreigners in prison in solitary for 14 days without charge for shoplifting just in case.

That said it’s a beautiful place that is very well designed(eg. high buildings next to busy roads protecting the residential areas behind from noise) compared to other places with similar demographics are complete structural unlivable monsters(Tehran for example).

But it’s not a place I would want to spend more than a two week honeymoon phase at.

I've lived here in Japan for nearly a decade now and had a couple interactions with police. None of them have been targeted, and even when I was doing something illegal (riding a bike with headphones in) or plausibly illegal (sitting in a park drinking alcoholic drinks with my bicycle parked next to me) they were polite to a fault and also didn't seem to care about my immigration status.

Anecdotes are difficult - some people get unlucky and extrapolate their experience to something that is not statistically sound.

Not sure why you're being downvoted...the context that seems to be missing from the OP comment is:

The cops in Japan are nicer to visibly identifiable Japanese people than white cops are to assumed white US citizens. Yes you're more likely to be shot or worse in America, but most often as a nonwhite person. More often to be jailed as well and once you add white citizens of middle and working classes or simply homeless, it becomes a deeply overlapped venn diagram

Somehow many hinted but none of these comments directly identified this.

More whites are shot by police each year than every other ethnicity combined. Sure as a percentage it isn't equal but it isn't close to as unequal as you seem to be implying here.

Blacks are 3x as likely to be shot as a white but when factoring in the documented higher crime rate of blacks as a percentage of the population this isn't as clearcut an issue as the media makes it seem.

The expletives you use when referring to the policeman don't really help your point.

If it was a residential area (houses) police generally know everyone who lives there, so yes, they will consider someone they haven't seen before talking on the street at night suspicious.

Sure, except I've been there for a week and walked my child 3 times a day and would go to the local community gym for a swim when she was asleep. So it's not really an excuse.

> I have a feeling you've never actually been there.

I've been Japan, and was lucky to visit as a civilian, rather than in a business or military context. I kept my phone off and used cash for the duration of my time away from my conference and had many informal conversations with Japanese citizens, who were overwhelmingly kind to me as I mourned the death of one of the last people on the planet who gave a damn about me.

Much of what parent said is accurate -- but paired with the fact you will almost never be subjected to their justice system as a white person.

To paint a picture, at the time I cruised on in from Haneda or whatever, the Deftones had recent released "Koi No Yokan", NK was once again threatening to do something nuclear, and I ended up racking a reputation as possibly being the next Ted Kazinski when I used a WISYWYG nuclear yield calculator[1] to show some folks who I shared office space with that based on the projected yield, they might take out the base, but folks at the Bankoku Shinryokan north of the island would just need to take some iodine pills and hope folks glass the North with conventional weapons.

And then, upon arrival, I apparently committed a minor diplomatic faux paux by drunkenly wandering into the neighboring karaoke booth, bumming a cigarette, and loudly declaring that I'd want the base closed too if the Marines kept raping folks in my hometown and crashing their helicopters into apartment buildings, both of which apparently had been a persistent issue for my new friends.

(They were initially a bit hostile because they thought I was a Marine ditching curfew because I was massive bald guy dressed all in black, but I think I may have gone too far in the other direction explaining in explicit detail why they should believe me that I wasn't in the CIA.... hehehehehe.)

Anyways, the times of Shinzo Abe, much like the man himself, are never coming back[3]. Incarceration just traumatizes folks and renders them more likely to act out upon release.

It is time to stop excusing bad behavior and join the younger generation of hackers and phreaks in a shared reality, and acknowledge hard truths like "Japan is so racist, they'd rather invent robots to take care of their elders than relax immigration rules" rather than make hand wavey statements like "They do have an issue with forced confessions" that excuse fascist behavior.

It is unacceptable to coerce a confession. Full stop.

(Sorry to be harsh, but there's nothing I love more than to be the living embodiment of a flavor of potato chip -- specifically, the "Cool American".)

[1] Get it? FC? hehe https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.sfgate.com/news/ar... [2] https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/ [3] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110453574/shinzo-abe-assassi...

Showing a causal relationship here would involve explaining why many other western countries with much more relaxed policing laws also seem to be safer than the US. I would guess a more likely reason is that more foot traffic reduces crime.

Also purely anecdotally, I have been let off with a warning in Japan before; certainly their prisons are draconian (or so I’ve heard). I’m also not sure how you could be arrested there for public intoxication; I’ve only seen police confront a drunk person who was actively trying to fight someone. Compared to countless workers or college kids passed out on the sidewalk…

> Showing a causal relationship here would involve explaining why many other western countries with much more relaxed policing laws also seem to be safer than the US. I would guess a more likely reason is that more foot traffic reduces crime.

Just looking at the US (and those other countries) over time as well would also be interesting.

If memory serves right, violent crime in the US increased between 1970s to 1990s and has since decreased. I don't think that development maps well to pedestrian traffic?

> If memory serves right, violent crime in the US increased between 1970s to 1990s and has since decreased.

From 1960 to the mid 1990s crime rates in the US almost quadrupled. They’re now at about double what they were in 1960[1]. People adopted measures to avoid crime. They left urban areas, greatly increased security measures of all types, dropped the assumption that most people were generally trustworthy. Without those measures of adaptation things would not have improved. Those are costs and they’re ongoing. In the 1960s and 2020s the US had large scale urban riots and each time people learned the lesson that they couldn’t trust the government to protect them and their property from rioters. But if you live far from dense concentrations of people riots are very unlikely. Thus suburbanisation.

[1] https://www.strongnation.org/about/our-organization/our-hist...

Any US/Japan comparison that focuses solely on their legal system (or any other single aspect) while ignoring all of the other massive differences is completely disconnected from reality.

Relative to the US, Japan is ethnically and culturally much more homogeneous. The culture has an intense focus on communalism, respect and duty as well as a host of other differences. For example, cleanliness is much more highly valued. Communal values are often said to have been shaped by the much more frequent natural disasters suffered by Japan. Healthcare is much more affordable and accessible. They have rather different taboos and attitudes around sex. And so on.

Since you apparently believe that a draconian justice system is the primary (sole?) secret to a peaceful society, you might also want to broaden your research to consider countries whose cultures are much closer to America's, have justice systems are much more lenient than America's, and still manage to have lower crime rates. Because there are a lot of them.

I have not spent time in Japan, so feel free to discount this. But I suspect the causal relationship is much more likely to be:

    communalism --> (low crime + harsh penalties for violating societal norms)

Than it is to be:

    harsh penalties --> low crime

What bull. It’s certainly true that the Japanese legal system is draconian, but if you are a marginally decent citizen you will never encounter the police in your life (beyond their normally helpful role as public servants).

If there were any punishments for public intoxication half of Tokyo would be locked up. What is probably punishable is public intoxication in the western way (e.g. agressive displays, public intimidation and other obnoxious behavior).

The streets are safe here because nobody feels the need to make them unsafe. Punishment from the legal system doesn’t factor into it. I mean, I guess to some extend it does. If you are not interested in keeping the streets safe, and add to the feeling of danger/unsafety, the system will come down on you like a hammer.

Japan is safe in part because theyre culturally homogenous. That culture drills in a sense of obligation to the point of being oppressive. Obligation of the children to the parents, the parents to the company and even the company to society at large. It creates stability, but often at the expense of flexibility. Then there's the sense of shame when you fail to live up to that obligation.

> It creates stability, but often at the expense of flexibility.

Also at the expense of individualism.

The freedom to think differently gives us many different issues in the western world. But I still think it's worth it. Making the most of one's life is important.

Also I don't think law enforcement is the biggest factor in reducing crime. It doesn't eliminate the need for people to commit crimes, it just moves it to less policed areas. The bigger problem is disenfranchised and low-opportunity groups. If all the chances you have in life are to be a minimum wage burger flipper then it's easy to become disenfranchised and turn to crime that does offer you chances. Increasing the risk will also increase the potential rewards as the war on drugs and prohibition have shown.

I think our cities in Europe are safer because people have more economic equality and a better welfare safety net for when things really go wrong. And our prisons are a lot milder than the US's or Japan's. Especially in the exceptionally safe Scandinavian countries.

Not sure how Japan deals with welfare but I wouldn't consider this just a law enforcement issue.

US culture doesn't trap people in minimum wage jobs their entire lives. Even fast food places have raises and promotions. Maybe you're being hyperbolic there? It does generally require people to work and try, which can appear impossible if they lack a working parent or other role model to help them believe they can do it. This is not something welfare solves though. It possibly makes it worse. Something like shop classes in schools (which used to exist) and apprenticeships would be a direct solution, because as we constantly hear, the jobs are there looking for people.

I was exaggerating yes but for you really think someone from a ghetto has the same chances at a decent life as someone from a well-off family?

They're being ethnocentrists. Or, racist.

> Statistically criminals will commit crimes again if let out even on minor infractions. Japan seems to have realized this and capitalized on it.

What a worthless bit of nonsensical rhetoric.

TF are you on about?

> Punishments for something even as simple as public intoxication can be comparatively severe

Public intoxication is not a crime (or likely to get you into trouble) in the first place. Stay out of operating vehicles or heavy machinery and being intoxicated is not going to get you into trouble.

Do you have any evidence showing that "tough on crime" laws and policing result in safer cities? The standard liberal dogma at least says that they don't.

Harsh punishment exists because of their Overton window. The demographics that matter (child producing families) would make that trade off easily.

That's almost uniquely USA (and 3rd world countries) problem, many EU cities are just as safe but don't enjoy such charming culture like Tokyo

a long comment which says you have no idea what you are talking about.

The best parts of any city are the places where cars aren't allowed or are minimized/not the primary method of getting around. The most economically productive, high-demand areas of any city are the ones at walking scale where humans enjoy spending their time.

A lot of infrastructure planners work to optimize traffic flow without much consideration to the actual humans existing in an area.

Tokyo doesn't have this problem in its most iconic places, as it largely relies on rail and subway for mass transit.

Of course, that's not to say that Japan isn't car-oriented. It is in a lot of places, it's more car-oriented than most people assume.

Still, Japan is a place where you rarely hear of any foreign tourist renting a car.

A fun way to visualize how bad cars are for a city is comparing train bridge and tunnel productivity to car lanes. You would need 24 Manhattan-bound traffic lanes to match the throughput of the Manhattan Bridge, [1] and then you'd need a whole bunch of other unproductive, human-hostile space to fit all the off-ramps and road junctions needed to make that concept functional.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbZXtSnabWc

The lax zoning laws (at least compared to the US) allow mixed use so you have more things within walking distance. This was a fascinating video on it: https://youtu.be/wfm2xCKOCNk

An absolutely amazing city. And fascinating in that in this more collectivist society you have actual individualism whereas most American towns are heavily conformist and enforce this through law.

A curious glimpse into the fact that societies are not simply collectivist or individualist but so or not so across multiple axes.

One thing that I find interesting is how much laws influence these things and how a society moves from growth to preservation.

It seems that societies grow greatly and then settle into a period of stagnation, constantly talking about golden years while actively stifling them in the present - moribund European economies, the erstwhile innovation cities of America.

Curious. You can only create greatness while your populace is weak because once it is strong it seeks the status quo and slow decline - loss aversion trumping exploration.

Ultimately, in some way, cities and states suffer the Innovator's Dilemma too!

Japanese people are significantly more individualist than Americans. You can have any weird hobby you want and they’ll ignore you. They produce more cultural exports per capita than the US does too.

The stereotypical collectivist society is a better description of Korea. A better way to explain Japan is it’s like England but Asian.

I find this implausible after just having visited Japan. The Japanese and Japanese culture are a lot of great things but I would never ever describe it as individualistic.

They’re not showing it to you. They keep it private but it’s still there. (that’s called “honne and tatemae”)

You’re welcome to look through used fashion/music stores in Tokyo if you want to see how good their soft power is.

Meanwhile the stereotypical suburban American thinks every nearby city is a hub of crime and won’t let their children walk anywhere until they’re 25. Vs: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1596322167222063104

> They’re not showing it to you. They keep it private but it’s still there. (that’s called “honne and tatemae”)

There is in my opinion a direct conflict between everyone being highly individual and noone being willing to show it. What does individualism even mean if it isn't visible?

I'd never deny Japan has a lot of great culture and soft power however my definition of individualism contains a key component that an individual is willing to hold an alternate opinion and display it prominently and assertively to a crowd of others in their society. Basically in defiance of what they think and at least in some circumstances to piss them off.

This type of individualism is virtually none-existent in Japan from what I can see/saw there/know of the country and was told by people.

An individualism that isn't on public display is in my opinion not a particularly strong form of individualism. I'd agree that Japanese people probably have as much variation in thought etc as in the West however if we are looking at the overall culture, individualism is not a prominent strain of it.

”What does individualism even mean if it isn't visible?” This beautifully sums up east vs west.

How so?

You should read the replies to that tweet:

https://twitter.com/keccers/status/1596324554095595521

https://twitter.com/robinkunde/status/1596325433653559298

It is very common for American schools to have student art shows.

I don't know where you get your perception of the US from, but it sure isn't reality. Your other two "observations" are similarly divorced from the real world.

I read them. I think the point being missed there isn’t that it happens at all, but that US schools would be expecting that out of much older children. (My critique here would be, if you ask elementary schoolers to do a project, you might just get what their parents can do for them.)

In what sense does American culture punish/suppress/relegate people who have private hobbies that Japanese culture doesn't?

I think the axis here to look at is not individualism vs collectivism but empathy and willingness to cooperate.

> It seems that societies grow greatly and then settle into a period of stagnation, constantly talking about golden years while actively stifling them in the present - moribund European economies, the erstwhile innovation cities of America.

I feel like more often it's not "it was great but now it is worse" but the fact people forget the bad stuff and remember the good times.

Sure, buying a home is more expensive than ever but in general standards of living in most places are steadily growing and we're not getting poisoned by lead in petrol or have lead &asbestos in walls.

I guess you've heard it before but “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”

I don't know whether it's true or not... hard to prove there's causation and not just random cycles of improvement and decline due to luck or external factors - the higher you climb, the easier it is to fall.

I think it’s easier to say those things in hindsight. Obviously, if someone created good times, they must’ve been strong men. If the times are getting worse, it must be because whoever is in power is weak.

I’m more inclined to say that when times are harder, it becomes easier for fortunes to shift, and a lot of the regulations that would otherwise stifle growth are lifted (either because nobody cares, or because the law makes it so).

It does sound a bit like fascist nonsense. On the other hand I do have to admit to people often become stronger to when they need to in order to survive. Look at the Ukrainians. Still I'd rather they were living calm and peaceful lives maybe with a better economy instead of having to be brave and strong to survive.

And how exactly is that "fascist", can you explain? The word has no meaning now.

Two interesting statistics that may be relevant:

  Homeless per 10k rate [0]
  Japan: 0.3
  USA: 17.6

  Rate of intentional homicide victims per 100,000 inhabitants [1]
  Japan: 0.3
  USA: 6.3

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Japanese crime stats are not reliable. If the crime cannot be solved it is no longer reported as a crime.

My first (and only) visit to Japan was a week-long trip to Tokyo in early summer this year. It promptly became my favourite city in the world (and I traveled a few places).

For me, Tokyo represents a pinnacle of successful urbanisation. The people are superbly polite and considerate, it’s safe and clean, with stunningly beautiful architecture within urban spaces that were surprisingly green and simply pleasant to be in. The car traffic is immensly busy, but works amazingly well. Public transit works like clockwork.

Public spaces are busy like you’d expect them to be in a metropolis, but in a non-stressful and benevolent way. Food is amazing.

It was love at first sight. Maybe I was dazzled, but I want to go back there very soon.

No, because the charms come from the culture and the culture will never be replicated elsewhere. Things like, almost no one steals, people return dropped wallets, people don't destroy vending machines (vandalism is low), people try not to annoy others (few house parties, instead rent a bar, practice music in rented music rooms, not at home, it's legal to drink in public but no one does it except at parks and no one gets rowdy, etc... etc...

Compared to the US you’re a lot more likely to live near a bar though. You can open businesses like bars on the ground floor of your house!

The US, which is supposedly capitalist, actually does all it can to stop any profitable use of residential areas to make sure people are already rich before they try buying in one.

It's not crime. It's cleanliness. Japanese people are really clean. That's really the main reason why things everywhere are charming.

There are cities with similar layouts to Tokyo but they aren't charming simply because those alleyways get really dirty. The griminess influences everything including the businesses and the crowds it attracts. It ends up influencing the whole flavor of the city.

Dirty cities aren’t a matter of people cleaning them so much as industrial processes and car fumes not dirtying them.

There’s also the different materials they use - everything in Tokyo is covered in concrete (not sure if that’s good or bad) but buildings also strangely tend to be covered in what I’d describe as bathroom tiles. I wondered about this, but realized it’s just so humid they’d be growing mold otherwise.

Also if you’re comparing to NYC, it’s just particularly dirty because everyone leaves their garbage on the street, since the government is incapable of organizing anything better.

I'm comparing to SF and NYC. It's definitely the cleanliness. If it wasn't for residents cleaning it up, those tiny alleyways in tokyo would just accumulate shit to the point where it's disgusting to even walk through it.

Residents in SF and NYC don't bother so it all goes to shit.

In terms of pollution, LA probably has the worst pollution but it's cleaner then SF and NYC. So it doesn't correlate. It's not the pollution. Pollution correlates more with car usage, of which LA takes the cake.

Griminess more has to do with population density, Of which, Tokyo takes the cake and also bucks the trend.

In America, good luck. We can’t even get people to enter/exit a train orderly. It’s not an entirely fair comparison though. For example - trains in Japan stop at designated places so the doors line up with the paint markings. There aren’t any on Caltrain/Bart/nyc - so no one knows where to stand. And the conductors don’t have a consistent target.

Or take a busy underground subway. Japan knows to stand on one side and make way for walkers on the other. That isn’t happening in most of America.

But, I just went to Disney world, and that’s about as orderly/idyllic as I think we can get. When all the people there have a similar goal, and Disney has thought up all the processes to remove friction - like trash cans every X feet make it a beautiful place. Their crowd control is also top notch.

BART has markers where the doors open. They only miss it on occasion. There was a big uproar when some new rumble strips didn’t have these markings a few years back (https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/cao2nm/yo_bart_why...)

Oh nice, that’s great to hear. Is it this way at all stops? I’ve been away and haven’t ridden Bart for 7 years.

There would need to be a much higher level of societal trust than there has been justification to have in much of the world today. Add to that Tokyo's situation is built on a lot of suffering in silence. Tokyo is nice to visit, but the locals aren't nearly so keen. As a tourist you wouldn't see that so much. Of course that's not to say the world couldn't still learn a lot from the place. Besides, with many countries having children below replacement levels will such situations be necessary? Even for Japan perhaps not in the decades to come.

Yes. In most modern Japanese cities with more than 1 million inhabitants.

The Eurocentric Orientalism at HN is so wild. Most major urban centers are jam-packed with charm, many locked away from outsiders.

Haven’t read the article yet but I do love that cozy looking image.

I wonder if Japan has something like ADA or other types of electrical/fire code that would prevent places that right from being built.

Not so much for ADA but certainly for firecodes. When a Yokocho inevitably burns down, it can’t really be replaced.

A newer version can look like this[1], an above ground floor of an office or shopping building hosting a bunch of tiny bars.

it’s still pretty good, but is not as charming as a bunch of old and unique places that only still exist because they’ve been grandfathered into an existing yokocho.

[1] https://digjapan.travel/en/blog/id=10637

The accessibility issue is usually around width of the spaces themselves.

In the US the ADA requires a minimum 12ft (~4m) path and often smaller places in Japan are not quite that wide.

NYC/SF could learn a lot from lack of crime in Tokyo

You mean to not report crime unless it is solved? Maybe ...

Betteridge.

Not in this case. Fire your urban planners and get a national zoning code and you can do it.

This. Zoning is a huge reason Tokyo feels amazing to us Americans. The ability to have micro-stores and restaurants in every back alley and other unconventional spaces allows innovation that isn’t possible in the US cities where viable commercial spaces for a restaurant start at $20k per month. Zoning also enabled more home based businesses, particularly in many of the smaller Japanese cities. Good luck getting any city in the US to let you run a yakitori restaurant out of your house.

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