The Secret to Japan's Great Cities

The Toyota Land Cruiser was in Shinjuku not Ginza

Narrow streets are relatively safe but it's mainly on them that I can have near collisions, notably at very small intersections with no visibility at all and people turning directly while riding on the right side of the street.
Big roads are OK for me, I don't mind, except for buses and people parked on the left.
I'm an avid cyclist in Tokyo, I do almost everything by bicycle including going to destinations up to 12km away and do food deliveries also :).

Please visit India and make a video on it!

Thanks for the tip on the Fietsersbond. Just became a member! Funny how I needed a Canadian Amsterdammer to make me do this, after living in the Netherlands for over 45 years and being an avid biker all my life!

Cars are very useful and if you don't live in a major city cars are almost essential for modern life. Cars increase the distance shops, businesses and leisure facilities can attract people, making them viable. Yet for a major city, the anit car stuff makes a lot of sense. Is there an example of a good intersection between a non-car city and a lower-density car-dependent area working well?

loving the japan videos! but please fix your mic, it sounds like the gain is way too high

Can you do dedicated video on what the Dutch do wrong please? I want to understand if they are simply Gods or if they make 'mistakes' as well.

Limit 30?? My city has limit 50 but I mostly drive 60-100, 50 is way to slow

Sometimes I'm tempted to think, "Well yeah, a lot of these places were obliterated in WW2 and had a big chance to redesign everything."
Then I visited car-centric Hiroshima.

Has NJB ever reported on the status of Minneapolis? Thinking of moving there and not having a car

The principle for the planing of a city in both Canada, to have separated districts for housing only and commerce only, is very simple: to favor the purchase of vehicles, which helps car makers to get rich, which helps people to burn petrol, and helps people to pollute the environment, and helps people to destroy earth's nature.

The narrow streets of Japan have always been the one I like the most to navigate. Usually not many tourists are there and you can get a feeling of the calmness of those places.

素晴らしいドキュメンタリーだけど、都市部で増えている道路の拡張は、自動車産業というより再開発で金を生み出したい行政と不動産屋が主導していることでもあるんだよな
大きな駅と大きな駅を結ぶ小さな道を拡張することで、2つの経済圏を1つの巨大な経済圏にするといった具合に

Thank you so much for shouting out the Fietsersbond, they're truly amazing people, and even gave you a shout out on their website!

Now, let's see how and where they keep the homeless. Obviously, not in open tent cities within the city.

Seems inviting for persons that are wheelchair bound...♿

Hi, I noticed that your videos seems to mainly focus on cars as the only bad actors causing congestion
What about motorcycles? In countries like Indonesia, the roads are narrow as well and shops and homes are cramped together
Hence, people generally ride motorcycles everywhere, including pedestrian sidewalks which make it incredibility dangerous to cycle or walk anywhere

I have a 100¥shop/dollor store, 7/11,family mart,lawson,trainstation,mc donald,ramen store,sushi store,supermarket,barbershop,etc within less than 5min of walking time where i live at

Very convenient

Definitely better to have these narrow streets. ❤

I think the Canadian culture and the infrastructures are too far gone to realistically reach Tokyo type of urban planning. Curious to see what your take on Seoul is. They do high rise subdivisions, where a pre planned neighbourhood of 20+ story 1500sq+ condos fill a few city block sized area. Because these neighbourhoods have the density, there are every kind of amenities within in its walls, including doctors offices, supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, etc. Surface levels are vehicle free and all traffics are directed to underground. There are plenty of greens spaces, playground to compensate for the lack of having the backyards. There is one central community centre that contains gyms, pools, party room so the maintenance is significantly lower than its canadian counterparts.

Yep yep yep yep. I will fully embrace the superiority of walkable streets

everything is bigger in america, get used to it bub

Parking my ramen

Excellent video. Well presented and explained. As a Canadian who has lived in many of the large cities, I see the sad realities of giant parking lots next to train stations, and our reliance on over sized vehicles

Hey Not Just Bikes,
It might be fun to visit the town of Zoetermeer (~130.000 people/ my home town) and take a look at the 'Randstadrail'.
This is a big engineering project that runs mostly on elevated rails throughout the entire city and also connects to Den Haag and Rotterdam.
There is a tram every 10-15 minutes with relatively comfy seating.
A lot of adjustments were made to incorporate this new tramsystem with the other trainsystem that also runs alongside part of the Randstadrail.
May be fun to incorporate this project into one of your videos about public transport or touch on it in a different video.
I don't think it will be enough to fill an entire video, but definitively worth a visit.
Zoetermeer is accessible via train so you don't have to take a car to visit.
Keep the videos going!!

Here’s a fun exercise for any Americans or Canadians for when you’re bored.

Step 1: Pick a Japanese city, town, or village. Literally any of them.

Step 2: Watch a “walking tour” video in that place. Literally any of them.

Step 3: Wallow in despair and jealousy over the fact that your town looks absolutely nothing like that, and that if you tried to record a “walking tour” video where you live, you’d get run over or mugged or shot. Or maybe all of the above.

This works in several of the more sensibly designed European locations as well, but there’s just something about Japanese city design that’s so satisfying to see. At least for me.

One of the advantages in Japan is that the land on which the train stations are located belong to the railway companies. This gives them an incentive to make ground productive. Streets are not productive, but shops, restaurants, offices, housing and the like are.

I live in a suburb. I walked inside my house today

If japanese streets force vehicles to slow down, why does "truck-kun" kills so many single middle-aged salary men?

If anything, Japanese cities are suffering from success. Too many people are leaving Japan's rural country side and crowding into the huge cities.

Love this

The more videos I watch, the more I want to move the hell out of the US

My ideas of urban planning have been "radicalized" by living in Groningen.
I actually liked the various Japanese cities and villages and even country side a lot less, because of the lack of any "untamed" nature or greenery.
Very few weeds, insects and even birds.

Great presentation on urban planning of Japan

Canadians are addicted to suburbia. Live in a detached house with two or more cars. Drive to get or do anything. Drive your big SUV to Costco. Anything that blocks this is deemed “unaffordable”.

We need gas to cost three or ten times as much. Really make people think if they need this lifestyle and pay the real cost of global warming.

Canada deserves the same infrastructure

Just got back from Japan, crazy how i recognised some of these streets!

"Bike lanes are actually car-centric infrastructure because they're only necessary in places where cars exist, to keep bikes safe from cars"

This blew my mind, love that

Please analyze spain oh please, i think you’d be both happily and sadly surprised, id like to see what you make of Sevilla

One of the best videos I’ve seen this year. Nice work

I don't even know why I'm watching this, it just makes me wanna cry. I live in LA. Seeing a walkable street is heartbreaking 💔

Next time someone asks me why I live in japan I think I'll just send them this video. Food, low living costs and polite people are easy to understand. This is the aspect Ive had a much harder time explaining and its just as important to me as the rest

Moved from a tiny Asian city to one of the biggest cities in North America yet I still feel it's soul-crushingly boring. I couldn't figure out why until I watched this video.