The latter required developers with "the patience and capital to acquire and merge multiple plots over the years or even decades". There is nothing "inevitable" about Tokyo's character; although it has been remarkably resilient, with its social fabric, sense of place and character surviving generations of natural disasters, political upheaval, and economic transformation, it is not indestructible nor immune to threats. Whether you are someone who is interested in urban design, or you just love visiting Tokyo, this book has something for you. It explains various aspects of the Georgian and Regency house and provides a comprehensive guide to the houses of this period.

Additionally, this book succeeds excellently in explaining Tokyo's development as a result of just one historical path that is not a uniquely Japanese or Asian, but could have resulted in a Western city given different urban and political constraints. It's a little bit skeptical of corporate development which may sound a bit suspicious to western YIMBYs but I think it makes a lot more sense in the context of Tokyo. Joe McReynolds is an urban studies scholar affiliated with Keio University, where he studies Tokyo’s approach to urban development and how public policy shapes its urban fabric and communities, particularly Tokyo’s myriad subcultures.Two full-time workers earning Tokyo’s minimum wage can comfortably afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in six of the city’s 23 wards. Seeing Tokyo's implementation of various pattterns gives an idea of alternatives to standard ideas and acts as a foil to better understand what's desirable about the dense patterns of, say, Copenhagen.

A lot of unplanned neighborhoods do have shaky property rights hence the incentive is just to possess the land and built a cheap building. This is a sad fact, but on the positive side many of these covered waterways are now used as intimate walking spaces and as extensions of residences or businesses. In progressive cities we are maybe too critical of private initiative,” said Christian Dimmer, an urban studies professor at Waseda University and a longtime Tokyo resident.Sprinkled with excellent diagrams and illustrations, the book is a fascinating analysis written in a readable way, without too much overly-academic dryness. This book examines the urban fabric of contemporary Tokyo as a valuable demonstration of permeable, inclusive, and adaptive urban patterns that required neither extensive master planning nor corporate urbanism to develop. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. The small footprint of each establishment lowers start up costs and risks, allowing them to serve as incubators for young restauranteurs. His office, Jorge Almazan Architects, is committed to environmentally responsible and socially inclusive projects spanning from interiors and architecture to urban and community design.

Like yokocho alleyways, the authors argue that zakkyo buildings offer a prime urban location for relatively small establishments. We get some historical background and political motivations without getting overwhelmed with the details, which allows us some clearer perspective.Emergent Tokyo looks at 3 sites: the Mozart-Brahms Lane in Harajuku (near Takeshita Street); Yoyogi Lane and the Kuhonbutsu Promenade near the suburban station of Jiyugaoka. This book examines five of these patterns that appear conspicuously throughout Tokyo: yokocho alleyways, multi-tenant zakkyo buildings, undertrack infills, low-rise dense neighbourhoods, and the river-like ankyo streets. I recently read a very interesting book on urban planning (or lack of planning) in Tokyo, entitled Emergent Tokyo. Visitors to Japan, architects, and urban policy practitioners alike will come away with a fresh understanding of the world’s premier megacity—and a practical guide for how to bring Tokyo-style intimacy, adaptability, and spontaneity to other cities around the world.

The alleys and unplanned common areas those give rise to result in a true "neighborhood" feel, unbroken by large car-oriented roads or high-rise apartments. For the moment, I want to speak about those of Dani Rodrik, the well-known professor at Harvard's School of Government. Subsequently, those built in the 1960s and 1970s were built with the commercial use of undertrack space explicitly in mind.As the Japanese government attempted to rebuild their devastated capital city, they initially drafted a comprehensive plan, but soon concluded that they lacked the budget to carry it out. This book is a treasure trove of information about how these neighborhoods have evolved over decades. I thought some of the layout was a tad shoddy in places, but overall this largely succeeds in what it sets out to do and I certainly learned a thing or two along the way too. Tokyo at its best offers a new vision for a human-scale urban ecosystem, where ordinary residents can shape their own envi­ronment in ways large and small, and communities take on a life of their own beyond government master planning and corporate profit-seeking.