Tokyo anyone?

[neolikesfood 0]

Hello I am new in town.  Been playing sc4 rush hour for a while though... So anyways, last year I went to Tokyo Japan, and I must say, the skyline was pretty boring compaired to US cites such as Chicago and NYC, and I was suprized because their population far surpasses any US city!  Skyline aside, the street life and architecture you can see from street-level is great looking, especially at night when the entire city lights up like a giant pulsating neon organism.  The most neon i have seen in any city, except for maybe Las Vegas.  I also was delighted to find a very affordable and convenient mass transit subway/train system, as I am from California, and we take the freeway EVERYWHERE.  Tokyo reminds me of NYC in that anything is in walking distance, and if not, you can just hop on a train to get there.  A pedestrian paradise...

So anyways, I made this forum to ask you all what do you think of Tokyo?

Here are some pics I took while from Tokyo Tower, (Tokyo's wanna be Eiffle Tower)

[copecopecopecope 0]

I saw the skyline of Tokyo and i gotta admit that i don't like the japanese cities. But i like some of their skyscrapers. But if you want to see something special about Tokyo, search X-Seed and SkyCity 1000 in Google.

[ledge69 0]

I find the contrast quite sureal, small wooden homes and towering apartment blocks but I do quite like the style.

[paperboy15 4]

Never been there, but I love the skyline at night. All those blinking red lights...it's very imposing and makes me feel quite small. Hehe...

[legalizeit 18]

Well, Tokyo is an earthquake-prone city and probably has building regulations because of that, so that may account for the seeming blandness of the skyline. All the same, I think people really focus too much on skylines; cities are much more than just that. There's lots of great architecture, old and new, that isn't 300m tall.

[copecopecopecope 0]

Yeah, what i tried to say is that i don't like the japanese architecture. Actually, the skyline of the city are 4 or 5 skyscrapers. The rest of the city is a massive block of buildings. But what i do like is the old architecture of Japan.

[wagusmaximus 0]

Don't mock it til u been there! There are many strenuous building codes, I know. My father in law is a subcontractor there. everything has to be perfect earthquake proof. For example, everything there is LP tanks on site. There is NO natural gas pipelines at all. there appartments are very very small too. 2 or 3 ROOMS not bedrooms, therefore they don't need huge apartment buildings like us Americans. We tend to take up alot of space, but we also have alot of space.

Tokyo is built on a place called the Kanto plane. The kanto plane is most ly flat land, and compaired to US there isn't alot of it. so they are pretty much living on top of each other. If u look at the (suburbs) like were I used to live in Zushi, very mountinous, houses and buildings built right into rock cliffs and hills. It is very complex and eye pleasing. But, beuty is in the eye of the beholer.

[montrouge 2]

One word  :   Ochanomizu 

It is Tokyo for me.

[HuskerDude 12]

I'm hoping to go there this summer, I'll let you know then.

[sc4portugal 10]

Well I've never been there but i'd like to seen as it is the biggist city in the world.

[ilikehotdogsalot 311]

i personally don't really like modern cities, but i make an exception when it comes to tokyo, it's one of my favorite skylines actually.

[homeandaway 1]

Im not sure if i want to go to Tokyo, i mean, if you do go, you are in the worlds most biggest and populated city!. 35 million japenese people around you!. You would know where to start!.

~Alex~

[Charles Rodulfo 0]

oh, I see where SOMY modelled his Urban School thingy! hahaha! Well, one thing I like 'bout Tokyo is that it is big and that there are a lot of places to visit. There's a mixture of old and new Japanese architecture. Um, I am a fan of big buildings myself but putting mega-buildings in Tokyo or in any city in Japan for that matter won't do it good if the skyline is the concern. It doesn't look good that there are a lot of buildings lower that 300m and suddenly a huge kilometer (probably more than that) skyscraper peaks out in the middle. I don't want to compare but cities that should contain huge buildings should have buildings that are at least a quarter of the tallest building in the city and there should be a lot of tall buildings in the vicinity itself, just like Manhattan or Dubai.

[Moshi 61]

Well, actually SOMY's school is an ordinary 60's "retro" concrete junior high/high school found all over the country

[Charles Rodulfo 0]

I just noticed something, there are a lot of look alike buildings in that pic that is currently in the STEX. LOL. It shows that there are a lot of architectural styles being applied in Tokyo alone. (The one in front of the school looks like a BSC-made building) xD

[Odainsaker 2,136]

Tokyo is a great overwhelming jumble, but it's probably at its best contrasting the few suviving old structures with the modern. I even like the Meiji-era red brick European stuff. The skyscraper skyline pattern maybe hard to decipher, but we must remember that the city is less organized around a central downtown, but instead has multiple wards and districts with numerous centers and neighborhoods, all swirling spiderweb-fashion around the vast imperial palace park compound. This leaves a big black hole in the center surrounded by rings and clusters of towers all over the place. Typical castle town planning on an unreal scale. This is also earthquake country...with perhaps more earthquakes than anywhere else in the world, so supertall towers must be more heavily engineered, and are thus far more expensive and comparatively fewer in number. And let us not forget the population density...Japan would be like having half the population of the United States packed into California, and then with most of those people living on the coast between San Diego and San Francisco. Makes you wonder if such density in itself creates Japanese efficiency and dynamism.

But I'm starting to gravitate to Osaka and Kyoto. Osaka seems more gritty and working class urbane, and Kyoto is the one major city whose ancient architecture survived the war in bulk. Then there is alway Hokkaido, where my friend's family (I think live in Otaru) tells me the natural landscape is spectacular.

(I wonder if anyone is BATting the tall the tower in the left edge of the picture above, the slick Roppongi Hills Mori Tower...hint hint, hehe!)

[mustafabb 0]

man japan is nice

[Sketchley 0]

As I live relatively near Tokyo (in Osaka Pref.,) my interpretation is that Tokyo is a real life example of some of the dense cities that people make with SC4.

Wagusmaximus and Odainsaker hit on very excellent, and important, points.  (Though, Odainsaker, Osaka isn't necessarily "more gritty and working class urbane".  It all depends on which part of the city you go to.  If anything, Osakans are more honest (or should that be direct, and blunt?) and Tokyoites are more secretive (that probably should be more prone to keeping their true feelings hidden.)  Nevertheless, both areas have a healthy quotent of shoppers at the brand stores, and an equally strong force of homeless.)

Anyhow... when talk of skylines comes up, it must be reminded that most of the places that the guide books tell people to visit, or not always the places with the best skylines.  In Tokyo, one of the better ones is Odaiba: http://images.google.ca/images?hl=ja&q=odaiba&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi  Where else can you see a statue of liberty guarding a suspension bridge?

There's also Roppongi Hills, Shinjuku (the twin-towered Tokyo-city hall building is a marvel to see, it's barely visible, poking up behind the buildings in the distance in the picture above.  Taken from Tokyo tower, I'm guessing.  The funky shrine (or is it a temple?) can be seen in the lower right foreground.)

Anyhow, cities in Asia are generally initially overwhelming to North Americans - so all is foregiven, as there are plenty of wonders literally hiding around a corner.  The cities are definitely made for living, working, and playing in, and not necessarily for standing back and looking at. 

Anyhow, as a resident, I can firmly say that SC4 is very North American, with it's high reliance on vehicle traffic to make the game work.  I'm also disappointed with the limited options for rail (in Japan, rail is the king of mass transit!), and the unability of stacking highways, or even roads, on top of each other.  Hopefully the next generation of SC will allow us to design more Asian-esque cities.

[mayormommy 8]

Originally posted by: Sketchley Anyhow, as a resident, I can firmly say that SC4 is very North American, with it's high reliance on vehicle traffic to make the game work.  I'm also disappointed with the limited options for rail (in Japan, rail is the king of mass transit!), and the unability of stacking highways, or even roads, on top of each other.  Hopefully the next generation of SC will allow us to design more Asian-esque cities.quote>

 

I went to Tokyo for the first time last year and will be going back next month. It was the stacked highways and rail lines that made my jaw drop on the bus in from Narita. Throw in the bewilderment all Americans get where people drive on the left side of the road and I was speechless. Plus the city is so huge. In one week, we basically only explored the east central part - Ginza, Ueno, and Asakusa. This time we'll try to hit Shinjuku and Shibuya on the west central side. And even then, we still won't have even touched half the central city. 

We survived by laying low during rush hour, having an excellent map, and sticking with conveyer belt sushi, pizza, restaurants with plastic food in the window, or those with pictures on the menus. However, we remained perpetually hungry. Another thing that impressed me was how people seem to do some much of their shopping at tiny little neighborhood stores. There's a few big department stores and supermarkets, but most commerce seems to occur at a much smaller level.

[2ch.net simplayer 180]

Tokyo is built on economics, and it nearly completely lacks "urban beautification". Well, at least, it is not emphasized. In this sense, Sketchley got it right. It is not a city to look at, but to live and work.

Its dense look is probably attributed to the lack of pakrs and green spaces. Japanese don't fancy lying down on the lawn in that humid climate. Instead, people go to Karaoke box, ge-sen, pachinko or whatever entertainment facilities. And most important of all, the population density of Japan is about 340 people per sq.km, which is much much higher than the US. In addition to that, only 17% of the Japanese land is habitable. This makes the defacto population density to well over 2500 people per sq.km!!

But on the other hand, high population density makes mass transports more efficient. So, Japanese per capita CO2 emission is only a third of Americans!

[Sketchley 0]

You got me curious about population density, and this search http://www.google.ca/search?hl=ja&q=tokyo+population+density spat back numbers between 5,000 and 10,000 per Km squared. Which appears to be less dense than the Japanese city I am living in - with a density of just less than 10,000 per Km squared!  This city is dense, but not as dense as some of the areas I have lived in, in Japan and Korea.

So... please keep in mind that Tokyo has large tracks of land dedicated to business (in SC terms: commercial and industry), which lower the overal population density.  And the daily migration of workers into the city balloons the density significantly.   There are some train stations that do see a over a million passengers per day!

Yes, mass transportation is very, very efficient in Japanese cities. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I can travel far greater distances, in less time, at much lower user fees than in the North American cities I have lived in.

[siso43 13]

Tokyo, is in my opinion a great city in this world,and one of the biggest Citys in the World

[mayormommy 8]

Here's a picture I took last week of a familiar SC4 landmark. This is from the south, in Shinagawa.

[montrouge 2]

Wow i love that view with the Mid tower

[siso43 13]

Your pic look cool and show fantastic with the tokyo tower

[Deathamphetimine 2]

Don't get me wrong, I love big cities, but Tokyo just looks to suffocating to this American. I gotta have some parks and tree-lined streets . Those are some stunning pics though.

[GMoney702 0]

The styles of the buildings vary nicely making Tokyo unique. I can relate this to Hong Kong which is my favorite city when your looking at the buildings throughout the day, especially at night.

[Volanolapolis 0]

Osaka is much better. (I only think this because my family lives there)

They told me people in Kansai (Region that Osaka is in) have a sence of humor but people in kanto (region that Tokyo is in) are way too serious.

I can't say if its true, because I've never been to Tokyo, and Osakans are know to be short tempered.

Back to Toyko, I really like how you have a choice to get around; bus, train, subway, monorail, and the famous bullit train to get to other big cities. Your really don't need a car, if you don't mind walking for a little bit.

[Johan_91 179]

I really love Tokyo! This place is awsome ^^

I will make a CJ about Tokyo when i go back home xD

Ah Volanolapolis, Yes they say Osaka people are more nice than the people in Tokyo. xD I think it has some truth in it. A friend of mine said that. I have only been to Tokyo but i love the friends i have made here so far hehe.

[toxicpiano 125]

What I find incredible about Tokyo is the scale and how compact the whole place is!