Introduction to this Blog

Welcome to this blog about the city of Tokyo.  

View of Shinjuku towards Mt. Fuji

The metropolitan area of Tokyo makes up the most populated urban settlement in the World and for most of those who have never visited the city, the image that probably comes to mind is of white-gloved officials cramming salarymen into bursting train carriages as they head once more to their daily grind.  Yet, talk to anyone who has come to live here and they will probably tell you that it's an amazingly easy, and dare I say, comfortable place to live.  

Visiting the central hubs of the city, it's easy to see Tokyo as a modern and efficient high-rise metropolis.  However, venture a little further from these hot-spots, and you soon realise that much of the city is a low-rise sprawl of houses, apartments and a myriad of small shops and businesses.  There seems to have been an almost laissez faire attitude to the development of many of these areas and it makes it even more amazing that the Japanese have found a way to make their city function so effectively.  

Kabukicho comes alive

It is this apparent lack of urban spatial planning in many areas of the city that lead me to the title of the blog, "Tokyo - The Accidental City."  It is almost as though development here has been allowed to take its own course through the needs and demands of its population, rather than from some guiding hand or vision for the city.  The result can't claim to be one of the world's most beautiful cities, in the usual sense, but it is certainly a city of great vitality and energy.  Tokyo is the true 24 hour city and many areas only really come alive as the sun sets.  Mundane streets are transformed by neon illuminations into an after hours play ground of restaurants, bars, karaoke and pachinko parlours.  Even the regular shopping streets are a hive of activity as commuters collect their daily shopping on their way from the train stations, often past 9 or 10pm.

Whilst I genuinely admit to enjoy living in this unique city, there are many things that I see and experience every day that leave me perplexed and scratching my head at the paradoxical nature of the Japanese and their relationship with their environment.  In this blog I want to look at different aspects of the Tokyo urban landscape and try to give some kind of explanation for why things are the way they are and perhaps point to ways in which they could be improved.  As a landscape architect, I suppose I'm likely to focus more on the visual and aesthetic elements and the public areas of the built environment, but I do hope to also look at architecture and urban planning in a broader sense.

Please feel free to add comments and perhaps suggestions for future posts.

Andy