Comment by pezezin
3 years ago
Not just Tokyo, but the whole of Japan. I live in Aomori, I have traveled quite a bit around the country, and I haven't seen yet a single city that wasn't extremely ugly. I have asked many Japanese people, and they just don't care.
I live in and love Japan, and after many years have also gotten used to the general ugliness and just enjoy the beautiful parts when I can, but turning off the Japanese filter I’ve developed, good god this is so true.
Can you post examples of this ugliness? I’ve never been to Japan and am curious. I had never heard of this.
Pick a random spot in any suburb of Tokyo in Google Maps Street View and start exploring. Here's one:
亀戸中央通り商店街 https://maps.app.goo.gl/9yY4Ncb5oM3hXqLY6
It's not particularly hideous by Tokyo (or world) standards, it's just exactly what was described earlier, a random mishmash of houses and shops in various states of repair.
You've just linked to a small, walkable street with slow traffic that has multiple food and shopping options mixed with medium density residential. Zooming out it looks like a quick walk to a metro station and multiple parks nearby. Not to mention how safe these areas are.
The random mishmash of houses and shops is exactly the type of place that makes walking viable negating the need for a car (and the expense and waste of space storing one).
I wish I could find neighbourhoods like those found in many Japanese and Korean cities; they're very small and hard to find even in Toronto and SF (and not really comparable anyway).
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I don't think it's pretty, but I somewhat enjoy this sort of look.
It reminds me a bit of a compressed version of older, less affluent northeastern towns, where buildings are a mish mash of styles and designs. It's an overused term, but it gives a sense of character or that it's a discrete place with it's own history. This building is a good example.
https://goo.gl/maps/4ExAzUnFJmez6EPa7
I’ve been to Tokyo and other cities in Japan, and I would gladly trade what you consider ugly for their cleanliness.
I live in Barcelona and not even Gaudi’s architecture can distract you from the amount of dog feces and piss that are rampant in this city, plus a considerably lack of cleaning in recent years for some reason.
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Interesting, I find it, while not beautiful, quite pleasant, and in fact enjoy walking or biking on such streets.
OTOH, while I heard that Paris is considered beautiful by some people, I didn't like it at all, and no longer visit there even if I happen to be going to other parts of France.
Similarly, I would never voluntarily spend a day in SF and several other famous US cities.
I guess the idea of "ugly" is quite subjective.
Having the powerlines underground would improve it a lot. Other than that I wouldn't call it particularly ugly.