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Good essay! I think small business centrism and mixed use zoning is the default almost everywhere except the US. I've had he same in India, Singapore, much of Europe, seasia and more. The idea of having open regs on opening a shop or whatever, with the neighbours right to complain, creates a pretty nice equilibrium.

I find the zoned corporate strip malls to be the odd one out, the results of a rather weird policy choice.

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There are many plus points to Japan's urban development but I think it is worth pointing out that there are tradeoffs (note that I live in Japan and have no plans to not remain in Japan).

First is the danger in a major earthquake etc. All of the Zakkyo, Yokocho etc. are likely to fare very badly when a fire breaks out. Being on, say, the 8th floor of a narrow tower when the fifth floor is on fire and there are (as would likely be the case after a quake) fires all over the place is liable to be fatal. And we know what happens to a Yokocho because there was one that burned to the ground after the Noto Earthquake earlier this year. Luckily the whole place was shut for the NY Day holiday but if the quake had occurred say a couple of days earlier and later at night I imagine there would have been considerable loss of life.

Second the fact that neighborhood associations prefer to not get the police/justice system involved in local disputes is not actually a positive thing for the police. What it says is that the police are arbitrary and capricious and you have no way to predict how they will rule. This is, BTW, one reason I believe rape is severely under-reported in Japan. Japanese rape victims well-founded fears that the cops will take the side of the rapist. The same may well apply to a lot of other crime. The police have a 99% successful conviction rate but I wouldn't assume that means they have a 99% accuracy rate.

Thirdly those neighborhood associations are very much a mixed bunch. Some are good. Some make the worst US Home Owner Associations seem like bastions of tolerant local democracy.

I think on the whole Japan does things well but there's a lot of dark underbelly that visitors don't always notice.

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Yes. Reading the article I felt like argueing with a lot of it, but you've nailed it in realizing that all of Noah's plusses also have minuses. For example, I find the stores on upper floors of zakkyou buildings offputting: if someone has figured one of them out I'll tag along, but I don't go into them on my own.

Still, I'm on a backstreet that ought to have a ton of car traffic and doesn't and the neighborhood association isn't terrible. On the other hand, there's almost no local shopping and the nearest supermarket is at the next stop on the train; a long way off. Since any sort of shopping at all involves trucking up to Shinjuku, I've become Amazon Japan's best customer. "I click therefore I am" has become my sonzaikan.

Anyway, since I live dead downtown, I do recognize the Tokyo Noah describes, yet my best guess is that the vast majority of Tokyoites wouldn't. Live in anything outside of dead downtown, and you are in urban sprawl or monster condo-complex developments. And a bit further out, and you are in suburban US car country equivalent.

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On the other hand the mixed use thing absolutely applies even out here here I live in inaka Japan. Lots of little businesses in the front room of someone's house. Or in a shed in the grounds. I think he's right that (lack of) zoning does make for a better quality of life on the whole

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> The police have a 99% successful conviction rate

Japan's 99% conviction rate isn't especially noteworthy.

Israel also convicts 99% but no one ever mentions that.

The US department of justice reports a conviction rate well over 90% most years.

California has a conviction rate around 85%.

Most prosecutors in most jurisdictions around the world don't bother going to court unless they think they have an 80-90% chance of winning.

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Not to mention that Japanese police are renowned for coercing confessions https://www.economist.com/leaders/2015/12/05/forced-to-confess

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Same everywhere.

98% of criminal cases in US federal courts result in a coerced confession. That's what a plea bargain is. Prosecutors threaten huge sentences to get people to confess. It's well known that innocent people cave to the pressure regularly.

Again, I'm not saying what Japan does (or what America does) is good. It's not. But there's a weird fetishism about everything Japan on the internet and the "99% conviction rate" is just another piece of that. Japan's not especially exceptional. A little bit? Sure. But 99% instead of 95% isn't why people trot that out.

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That sounds like a false equivalence. First of all, a plea bargain is not the same as a confession. Whatever pressures there might be to agree to a plea bargain, the defendant in fact gets a benefit -- most plea bargains are not by wholly innocent people, but by defendants who are in fact guilty of a crime, and often agree to plea to a lesser crime than that which they likely committed. In contrast, a defendant who is coerced into confessing gets nothing.

Second, according to this https://usali.org/comparative-views-of-japanese-criminal-justice/on-the-pressure-to-produce-admissions-of-guilt-in-japan-amp-the-united-states defendants in Japan do not have the right to have attorneys present during interrogations, interogations last vastly longer in Japan, and confessions were obtained in 86% of cases in Japan (versus 25% in the US).

None of this is meant to defend US practices (though most criticisms of plea bargaining are poorly thought out IMHO). The point is that Japan is unusually bad in this regard.

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It's the "crime solution" rate (which factors in the arrest rate) that really counts. If you get a conviction after arrest, that's one thing. But if the arrest rate prior to charges is 5%, it means not much.

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Zakkyo have fared pretty well in previous earthquakes? They are reinforced concrete buildings, and despite typically only having one fire escape staircase, have a pretty high ratio of fire escape to floor. It's a type of building that is literally encouraged to be built to form walls between low rise neighborhoods.

Older buildings, especially low rise, as in most yokocho, are death traps, which is why the government wants to get rid of them. A lot of people do love them and fight for them though. I think it's a good balance that most of what survives is stuff people find worth fighting for.

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I can think of plenty of zakkyo that are potential fire traps. That's absolutely what concerns me about them. The structure will probably survive the quake but I expect many will then have fires in them. I am highly skeptical that the fire escapes will turn out to be unblocked, that the emergency rope ladders will work etc.

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Good essay - Thanks for sharing your thoughts. The book - Emergent Tokyo - is a well written and illustrated book. I have bought multiple copies and often give them as gifts. I also use the Tokyo Emergent City as a metaphor for how emergent behavior happens when various ingredients come together. May it be organizational behavior, personal change, etc., when the right mix of basic elements come together it can lead to beautiful and serendipitous emergent behavior.

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Mar 27Liked by Noah Smith

Your last point about small business is really interesting.

Japan has a bunch of the businesses that Tyler Cowen's love letter would arguably be addressed to who have a lot of power (maybe too much?), and yet Japan is also able to still have this thriving small business scene. Is it because a clear divide in industries where this is encouraged?

Also, Americans talk about how much they love small businesses, but given all of the burdens placed upon them it seems untrue in practice (licenses, permits, burdensome regulations).

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It is a continuum. Starting an LLC in the US in much less costly and burdensome than in Europe. There are plenty of small business loans and grants to be had. Japan shows it can be better in some ways (especially restaurants) but the US is still in the top quintile for ease.

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Super Noah! In the mystery of Japanese small businesses, I always get flabbergasted by the staff they can afford. It's not rare to see restaurants open where there's barely more customer than staff. I went for a haircut in a neighbourhood salon, and the gentleman massaged me and cut me with great care for 30-45 min. And the cost was the same as a 10 min haircut in Europe.

As an economist, may be you can tell right away: is there a big difference in cost structures of business in JP vs EU vs US, and the share of income/value added that goes to labour, capital and taxes?

Could that explain part of why JP could afford so high a workers to customers ratio? Surely that would impact small business, urbanism, as well as unemployment and therefore safety.

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One of the sad things about going bald in Japan is you miss out on these excellent hair cuts with head massages that cost only a few thousand yen.

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Mar 26Liked by Noah Smith

Sad to miss the meetup, I will be in Tokyo for the first time on Monday. Excited to dive into the article, now I have Emergent Tokyo on my reading list this week.

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I used to be an occasional visitor to Tokyo. I loved the amazing buzz of the city but thought I could never live here. It was too noisy, crowded and expensive. Flash forward to the present and you will find us happily retired in Shinjuku of all places. Our neighborhood is clean, quiet and yet only a stroll from the thousands of shops, restaurants and bars that attract visitors. Away from those busy but highly concentrated areas are massive super blocks full of tiny, quiet streets for residences, pedestrians and cyclists. As Noah has mentioned in the past, housing is relatively affordable by mega city standards, public transportation is comprehensive and superb, the food here is far better than anywhere else (and cheaper too with far better service), and Tokyo remains a relatively clean and safe city with offerings (museums, concerts, shopping, subcultures, uniqueness) other cities cannot match overall. These days, I would no longer live anywhere else.

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founding

Do you speak fluent Japanese?

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I speak fluently but not always with correct grammar unfortunately. Why?

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founding

Just wondering if I might be able to consider retiring there.

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I see. Fluency is not required to live here, although it helps. I’d say it has more to do with a willingness to fit in and the ability to get through our horribly hot and humid summers. We are finding central Tokyo to be most suitable for aging. Medical and recreational choices are numerous and quickly accessible. We have been completely liberated from car ownership and driving. Just make sure to locate yourself near one of the city’s admittedly few large green areas and you can have the best of both worlds. (FYI there’s been people asking about retiring in Japan on Reddit, especially the tax implications.)

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I wonder how much business fees factor in. If you have large fixed fees to serve alcohol, that will incentivize higher capacity restaurants. If fees, to the extent they exist, were proportional to occupancy, that might help to incentivize these micro businesses.

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Brilliant analysis, Noah. Tokyo is a paragon of Glaeser's "Consumer City." Consumption amenities have huge value. Cities offer convenience, variety and discovery. Totally agree on the importance of small businesses: lots of small shops and restaurants mean that more varied choices are close at hand. One glaring omission: Public policies on cars and parking. Tokyo requires you have a dedicated private off-street parking space to register a private vehicle. This, coupled with liberal residential zoning, enables lots of density and car-free households. Having a high fraction of consumers on foot--and not in cars--tips the competitive balance in favor of smaller, closer businesses. In contrast, in the US, where 80% or more of households have cars and must drive anyhow, larger stores with bigger parking lots dominate mom-and-pop businesses. FYI: In the 1930s, nearly all US grocery stores were mom-and-pops--there were no supermarkets, and most households didn't own cars. Cars enabled supermarkets, and the larger scale, choice, and better pricing wiped out the corner grocery store in most US cities.

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Not just Tokyo, any car registered in Japan needs a pre-defined parking space, and parking tickets are burdensome (you usually have to go to the police station to pay the ticket with an obligatory apology). That being said cars are very popular in Japan, everyone I know who lives in Japan (urban, small town and rural) owns and drives a car daily. The Tokyo Motor Show is very popular and exciting.

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Rural Japan has one vehicle per adult as a default. Maybe more if you include some of the agricultural Kei-trucks that also get used for regular driving too some of the time such as when I borrowed it recently

https://ombreolivier.substack.com/p/simpler-vehicles

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hey noah can u write about south korea's economy?

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Last week I went to lunch at an excellent small restaurant in Fukuoka with two others. It had a table with four seats and a counter with five but it is exclusively kashikiri, meaning your group reserves the whole restaurant for your meal. It was probably less than 20 square meters with the entire kitchen behind the counter. A single local guy owned and ran the place by himself, no other employees. He had spent time in Sardinia after high school and learned that regions Italian cooking. The menu was selected by him and used local ingredients, including pork from a farmer who raised only 1 pig at a time. It was an excellent 5 course meal ending with house made sakura gelato. The cost was 6000¥ and with the current exchange rate was less than $100 for three people. It was on the first floor of an old house in a tiny maze of residential streets, not big enough to drive a big SUV on, just a seven minute walk from the subway (very nice, clean and quiet) station, but also right next to a small automated pay parking lot (100¥ for 90 minutes). Best lunch of the year.

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There are so many one man or couple run restaurants/izakaya etc. in Japan like the one you describe. We love them and the food they produce.

The problem these places have compared to a chain one is that if the proprietor is ill the restaurant is forced to shut. There's an izakaya in Matsue we like which is run by a guy and his mother (was his wife I think but they divorced or she died and the mother stepped in) which is in trouble now because the main guy is now suffering from some serious neurological disease and hence is not there because he's in and out of hospital. I hope he recovers but if he doesn't I anticipate the place folding because I can't see the mother keeping it going on her own for long

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Seriously underrated article because it points out information (emergent superblocks) that aren’t part of the New Urbanist and YIMBY conversations. Bravo 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

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I thought that was neat. It’s also interesting to hear urbanism support for meandering streets and the filtered permeability they have (usually urbanists are pro-grid, suburbanites want to keep out the riffraff)

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I’d just point out that at least #4-7 could be simplified to “Have Japanese people live there.”

I’ve lived in the Los Angeles suburbs, Oakland, and, for most of my life, Japan. It’s a human capital issue. I’ve never had a gun pulled on me on a Tokyo train or subway like I have on BART. Noise restrictions? Racist!

The Lake Merritt Park “Karen” dust-up in Oakland involved locals ignoring clearly posted rules about barbecue locations where there are nice tables, pits, and grills that are away from the residential area to avoid bothering them with smoke every weekend. Following rules like these is so natural for Japanese.

These clowns are now showing up on tourist visas in Japan and posting TikToks about how they can’t behave “Oakland-style” in Japan without cops (politely) showing up.

Covid was a good example of how Japanese just behave themselves despite the lack of legal requirements to do so.

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Isn't the fact that you've never had a gun pulled on you in Tokyo more down to Japan's strict gun control (which is also easily enforced because Japan is an island country) than to the (apparent) lack of ethnic diversity?

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But probably more than that - the US culture is very individualistic generally and at least part of the population takes pride in ignoring their effect on everyone around them. And I don't think that is just homogeneity of population - you see it in most of the US. Of course, a lot of folks don't act that way, but this is the kind of thing where it only takes a small percentage to disrupt and ruin things for everyone

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Indeed: almost all races in the US are more prone to criminal violence than they are in their "ancestral" homelands. White Americans have a considerably higher murder rate than any Europeans, black Americans have a higher murder rate than Africans (and note that South Africa -- with its legacy of apartheid -- is one of the worst countries in Africa for criminal violence), and Asian-Americans have HUGELY higher murder rate than their ancestors in Asia (even if it is still low by US standards).

The only race for which this isn't true is Latinos, and that is probably because the region from Mexico thru to northern South America is the worst in the entire world for violent crime: perhaps largely as a result of the drug cartels.

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Actually those kinds of zakkyo buildings are existed at old city in Seoul, Korea. If you have a time, please visit Seoul! Definitely you can get a great experience of seoul zakkyo~.

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Seoul also has those underground walkways that are markets which are something I like a lot and don't see in Japan

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”In dense cities where retail is largely confined to the first floors of buildings, the retail has to be much more spread out throughout the city. This means that if you’re going shopping, you have to walk or take a train long distances in order to see a whole bunch of different stores. It also means that a lot of people’s apartments are located above noisy retail outlets and crowded streets. ”

Disagree. It’s better to spread out shops and restaurants over a larger area (the old European model) rather than create one hyper busy centre surrounded by dead semi-suburban city blocks which noone has any reason to visit. The street level is what matters and stacking business simultaneously intensifies and limits life in a city.

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The quiet parts are not semi-suburban, they are usually small apartments mixed in with older row houses with minimal parking and only a few big fancy ones with gardens. They are only dead as in dead-quiet Who wants lots of people walking and talking at night in their residential neighborhood?

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Also they do tend have a mix of small neighborhood restaurants - at least the places I’ve visited. The last airbnb I rented was an 8 minute walk from the subway stop, and the surrounding commercial district- and while the residential area was generally quiet there was still a small bar (maybe 5 seats!) on the ground floor of my building and dry cleaner a few buildings away and a few other small businesses scattered around.

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It's a good book - funnily enough I am also in Japan at the moment (Kyoto) & have also reviewed it a couple of years ago (https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/emergent-tokyo-designing-the-spontaneous-city-by-jorge-almazan/). I think that you're exactly right that what makes Japan's cities exciting and distinctive is the small scale unpredictability - independent stores & restaurants but also temples and who knows wha else. Tha said, I would note that my editor, who lives in Hong Kong, was skeptical that there was anything that great about Tokyo to explain. Maybe that's a reflection of some of the more soulless big developments (Roppongi Hills?) that the book cautions about at the end.

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Roppongi Hills and its new cousin Azabudai Hills are not soulless in my opinion, much more interesting shops than urban malls in the US.

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Yeah but better than the US is a fairly low bar.

The Mori forest of skyscrapers is definitely less wanderable than what used to be there. Though I guess they still haven't finished, most of the area is now open and I went for an early morning run through it as few weeks ago. Its a lot more car centric in general. That's not all bad because they have built walkways and subways but those don't all seem to connect logically.

If you compare that area with a tad further south (Mita/Takanawa/Azabu) which is more of the old warren the latter is better.

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Japan is great in a lot of ways, no doubt. Oddly lacking from this analysis though, is the fact that Japan is pretty thoroughly an ethno-state. And one with an evaporating population to boot. It's pretty easy to drop into a place as an outsider from afar and say "here are all the great things about it that should be done elsewhere too!" But when this is not your home and not the home of your family, and you thus don't have that level of understanding of the full picture, and you also simply ignore the giant elephant in the room, you come across to me at least a bit like kids on a visit to disneyland saying "we should have rides like this in our backyard!!"

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Emergent Tokyo has a ton of Japanese contributors, and it spends a considerable amount of time debunking perspectives like these.

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I'm not sure if this was Thunder Road's point, but it did occur to me that Japan's lack of ethnic diversity might play a role in some of these urban policies working well rather than backfiring.

It's not hard to imagine how extremely powerful neighborhood associations, or a complex web of subsidies and assistance for small businesses, might create arenas of conflict in a multiethnic city. When I try to imagine either of those things transplanted to New York, I can't see it going smoothly.

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It is a high vs. low trust dynamic. In a high trust society the social norms provide a basis for limiting the burden of government- you don’t need external force to get your way. Zoning in the US and NIMBYism is as much racial and class phenomenon as it is a policy choice.

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Sorry, what perspectives exactly are they debunking? And what does that have to do with the particular article I've commented on?

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If a Korean migrates to Japan permanently, in a census they are counted as Japanese. If I, as a foreigner, walk around Japan everyone looks Asian so I assume it’s an ethno state which it is not. Final and most important point, not sure what an ethnostate has to do with the article?

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There are plenty of cities in ethnostates with bad planning.

Not sure why you think that is a relevant factor.

There are also plenty of cities in countries with declining population with bad planning.

Not sure why you think that is a relevant factor.

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Sure, there are examples of bad planning in various types of societies. Obviously. Not sure why you thought to make a point of that.

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I live in Japan. I like it. It's doing fine as an Ethnostate IMHO.

It is true that Japan is facing population issues. But then so are its neighbors, most (all?) of Europe and so on.

Now it might be worth our host taking a look at the disincentives to having multiple children in urban Japan (there are many, such the size of housing and the lack of public school places) but I'm not sure I see how this affects the urban layout Noah is so keen on.

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