Comment by tkgally

I’ve been living in Tokyo and Yokohama since 1983 and am as much of a Tokyo fan as they get, and I readily acknowledge how ugly Japanese cities are in general. But after buying a house here twenty-three years ago, and comparing my experience with those of houseowners I know in the U.S., I have started to see some beauty in that ugliness.

Many of the people I know in the U.S. live in attractive neighborhoods full of nice-looking houses and well-kept front yards. While some of that niceness is due to the owners’ own initiative, much is the result of zoning restrictions, homeowner association rules, and the like.

The only zoning restrictions on my house in Yokohama are limits on total floorspace and land coverage and fire and earthquake rules covering building design and materials. I can paint my house any color I want, pile whatever junk I want in my (tiny) yard, and hang whatever laundry I want from the balconies, and no one can or will say anything about it.

As a result of this tolerant, low-regulation regime, the neighborhood I live in is, like most neighborhoods here, an unattractive mish-mash of mismatched houses and apartments in many styles and states of upkeep. If that’s the price of (relative) freedom, I’m happy to pay it.