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.
Safe streets are the key.
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.
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.
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 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.
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?'
The freedom to shit on the street in San Francisco shouldn't be a freedom that is valued At all.
Authoritarian 'harmony' doesn't imply any sort of longevity.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Any examples for this statement?
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.
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.
(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.
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.
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?
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.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...
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...
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.
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.
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.
Anecdotes are difficult - some people get unlucky and extrapolate their experience to something that is not statistically sound.
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...
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.
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…
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?
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...
What a worthless bit of nonsensical rhetoric.
> 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.
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.
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)
harsh penalties --> low crime