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sounds of Tokyo
August 2015 Beat
The future city is low volume.
Tokyo is gradually recovering from the Lost Decade. Although Ginza, Harajuku, and Akihabara bustle with streetlife and head-turning photo ops, the look and pace have barely changed in 25 years. Growth is remarkably slow when compared to, say, Shanghai or Saigon, which have experienced rapid industrialization and transformation in only 10 years.
Ahead of its time and an early adopter of skyscrapers, high density developments, electronic neon billboards, and an efficient multimodal transportation system that boasts the largest rail network in the world, it once looked like the progenitor for Blade Runner.
Happily, Tokyo is more civilized than a postapocalyptic Hollywood movie. While many 20th century metropolises have advanced architecturally in homogeneous ways, Tokyo has retained its unique personality that defined it as a leader in electronics, fuel-efficient vehicles, and cute pop inventions. Even under 99 degree heat with 99 percent humidity in July, it’s a beacon of calm and composed order.
While North American cities have become obsessed with bike- and ped-friendly street diets and trends like cycle tracks, parklets, and woonerfs, Tokyo was doing T.O.D. and public third places before Jan Gehl joined the cult ranks of Jane Jacobs and William H. Whyte; before everyone started copying Copenhagen, New York, and Vancouver.
Today, new sidewalk designs in Hibiya accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists with a politesse reflective of the Japanese character. Everyone understands which side of the yellow stripe they belong.
Anime fantasies and role play come to life on city streets, with stylized bosozokus, cosplayers, and Lolitas – ironic everyday celebrations of Japan’s countercultural gifts to the world.
Beneath Yurakucho train tracks, smoky, bustling, Yakitori Alley serves up the best comfort food in the liveliest dining setting – a fun, effective solution to underpass blight. In such a dense, compact city, space can’t be wasted.
What makes Tokyo special has little to do with the physical, more to do with the sensual. A certain way the air smells and the breeze blows and the streets vibrate give it a timelessness that transcends passing trends.
Walking around, you’re struck how clean it is. And how low volume it sounds for a major city. Something about the way cars, trains, bikes, and pedestrians coexist effortlessly and with mutual respect, characterisic of the people and culture.
Someday, when cities and cars run on renewable energy and have plentiful shady places for people to linger, the environment will be quieter and easier than today’s noisy cities that are clogged with fossil-fueled vehicles and urban heat islands which bring out the worst in society and urbanization. Although real estate-poor these days, Tokyo is wealthy in unforeseen ways as it heads toward a green future. It epitomizes the low volume city of the future.
more BEATS about the fashion of urbs