Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

>No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan?

As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s. The country has taken some of the worst cues from the US.

Many cities like Tokyo are 75% suburban, single home, it's in fact the largest suburban region on the planet. The number of cars in the country is much higher than in the rest of Asia and many cities are extraordinarily sprawlish. From the air Tokyo literally just looks like a sort of denser LA (https://i.redd.it/mghcpc5xvt761.jpg)

If people are looking inspiration in Asia, Singapore is a much better place to look at, it deliberately designed around green spaces and avoidance of cars.

View on HN

> From the air Tokyo literally just looks like a sort of denser LA

I love aerial photos of megacities like this. But I would say "a sort of denser LA" is understating it a little; each of the small buildings in the Tokyo aerial that are too tiny to make out are probably 5-6 stories at least.

Whereas, an aerial of LA (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Los_Ange...) shows that very quickly out of the downtown area, the small buildings are in fact single-story single family homes.

>> No offence, but have you spent any time in Japan?

> As someone who moved to Japan it's always funny. I think people literally get their impression from Japan solely from neo-Tokyo sci-fi from the 80s.

Yes, I have visited Japan several times, multiple cities. My wife is Japanese.

But don't let that stop you. Please, continue.

Okay, well, more than 20 years living here and I reckon the air quality is terrible and that in 2023 it should be a much higher priority than it is. I have to raise my kids here.

I’m sure the total absence of zero emissions vehicle options has absolutely nothing to do with the political influence of the Japanese automotive lobby.

Somebody else in the thread showed you actual objective data on air pollution and you brushed it off. In Japan a substantial majority of people commute by transit, mostly by rail. How would air pollution be affected if as many people commuted by car as they typically do in North America? Cars are the subject of this post.

You’re absolutely right. I’ve lived here for 20 years but have no fucking idea what I’m talking about. What was I thinking. Carry on.

On a post discussing car noise pollution in North America you have spent hours and dozen of comments whinging about how terrible air pollution is in Tokyo and dismissing anybody presenting you with data. Do you have anything to contribute to the topic?

Hey man, I was responding to a comment that brought up Tokyo. I could talk about Tokyo air quality all day, yeah. Because I live with it. If you don’t want to talk about that, just stop talking about it maybe?

Your responded to a comment that brought up Japan *in comparision with Europe.*

A comment, about a YouTube video, on a channel 100% dedicated to exploring the devastating impact of the automobile on urban design over the past century and on the people who live in those places.

It’s not NA-focused, by the way. The guy lives in the Netherlands. The reason NA cities come up for pillorying so often is because he’s originally from London, Canada, and because of the special historical circumstances that led to cleansheet design-by-car for a huge number of NA towns and cities.

Didn’t seem off-topic to me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com