> It's a concept that's difficult to replicate elsewhere, but Lydon compares it to what made old Main Street America so special. Designing at a people-first scale pays off. "The smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access, a feeling of safety and community for all ages… it's hard to overstate how well this all works."
Honestly, even though I love the idea of Japan and the idealized vision of Japan that's often presented in the media, I can't help thinking that a lot of this stuff can be found much closer to home in Europe. The BBC didn't need to go all the way to Tokyo - they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city.
Or come to downtown Vancouver. I live in a small apartment, but within four blocks I have a community centre with gym, a pharmacy, a post office, a grocery store, a small bakery, the best liquor store in the city, three banks, a hot pot restaurant, a physiotherapist/massage therapist office, a vet, a dispensary, multiple hairdressers, an optometrist, several restaurants, two places to get gelato, a public plaza with a weekly farmer's market, a walking/cycling route along the waterfront, a car wash, a sports bar with arcade machines, skeeball, and pinball, an enclosed pollinator meadow, a science museum/IMAX theatre, two separate public "subway" lines (though one is elevated and one is below-grade), and two private but inexpensive water taxi services.
I can leave my house at 6 AM and go get fresh bread or baked goods and go sit by the water, or I can leave the house at 7 AM to get groceries if I'm out of something and be back by 7:10.
American cities don't want this because having a huge empty house with a huge empty yard and having to drive 90 minutes to get to work or 30 minutes to get groceries is the American Dream and no one who's been sold this dream wants to believe that there are so many better and more efficient ways to live.
It's because living in downtown Vancouver is expensive. Your rent probably comes close to covering the mortgage on one of those huge empty houses in the suburbs. That fresh baked good is probably ~$4 while the equivalent at Walmart is $1. No doubt it's a great lifestyle for well off DINKs. A lot harder to make it work for a family of 5 on 50k a year.
Yeah, something that bothers me is that there is such a tradeoff between affordability and walkabiliy. Most of the walkable cities/towns I would imagine being able to afford living in later in life I would imagine will no longer be affordable when I eventually make money (even on a dual income). Granted, I also don't want to live in dense areas but also want walkability.
I don't think there really _is_ an equivalent at Walmart?
Walmart bakes fresh bread too. I get it Walmart sucks but they do have everything that a normal supermarket has, including fresh hot food, bakery, deli.
While you are correct about Vancouver downtown, once you get o suburbs like Langley, Coquitlam, they are no different that what you are calling out American cities for.
If we limit this to downtowns, there are several cities in America that are similar (Boston, Seattle, SF, SanDiego, Austin, NYC to name a few).
Coquitlam is slightly better than American suburbia, I had plenty of parks and restaurants in walking distance, there’s skytrain and BRT now too
> there are several cities in America that are similar (Boston, Seattle, SF, SanDiego, Austin, NYC to name a few).
Worth noting the US does not have a single city in the top 20 worlds most livable. Honolulu is #25, Atlanta gets #35
That tells you something.
It tells me the way they measure 'livable' is wrong. Given the choice, most people would choose to be in any one of those over where ever they are now, and the cities on 'most livable' lists.
Those top 20 livable lists are always pretty narrowly defined though. They’ll mention some pricey cities in Switzerland for sure, and for forget the poor slouches that have to commute into Bern from Freiburg.
That isn’t anywhere close to the definition of livable though
How'd you measure 'livable'? 1. income, 2-n crickets?
Yes, it tells me the methodology is biased.
Hahaha. Absolutely on point. Don’t like the outcome? Methodology is bad.
Never mind this has been around for decades.
It actually makes perfect sense. In every metric that impacts a persons everyday life the us is almost always dead last among OECD countries. So of course the cites are too.
As someone who lives in Atlanta I can't imagine any way it's the second most livable city in the country.
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I think OP must be in their early 20s and has not experienced much of life yet.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
That would imply they created their hacker news account when they were 3-8 years old. Seems unlikely.
Its more likely that they simply value all the convenience they listed over having their own backyard, larger living space, living in a quiet safe neighborhood for kids to run around in, and being surrounded by nature.
I live in Ballard Seattle, we have most of that except the hot pot place (we are getting a Korean BBQ someday soon though). Ok, no imax (you have to take the bus to Seattle center for that). And…no subway-like mass transit until 2065 it seems.
But you can get that in the states, you just need to pay for it, although the prices are something Vancouverites can surely emphasize with. And frankly, Vancouver area has some wicked unhappy commute opportunities as well.
The nice thing about living in China was that it was easy and cheap to live urban.
America's greatest achievement is to last as long as it has while inverting all common sense. What is the fatal seed, I often wonder. I think this article suggests what it is. The role of the car in its fabric suggests it's hyper-individualism: a myth that the more untethered the self it, the more it will thrive. Hogwash
Probably goes back to the Roman idea of ownership + dominion; you're legally allowed to neglect your property. Compare this with some American tribes, during the same time period, where property ownership was shared and based on who were the best stewards of the land (neglect your space, and you lose standing in the community).
Plenty of American cities have this. I have three big grocery stores within a 2-7 minute walk. Myriad restaurants, bakeries, and cafes literally on the same block and within walking distance of me.
Vancouver is great, just wanted to call out the bias and massive overgeneralization in your statement.
> Plenty of American cities have this. I have three big grocery stores...
Yeah this is precisely the exact opposite of what the article is talking about.
What a shame you don’t have good public transit, horrible crime and pollution, poor schools and a police force that is actively against you.
The US does not have a single city in the top 20 worlds most livable for a reason. (Many, actually)
One key difference that jumps out at me between various cities in Japan and Vancouver is that the COL seems significantly better in Japan. When I visited Vancouver I couldn't afford to stay in or even near the city, I had to find a place about 20 minutes away and even then it was pricey. Whereas in Japan I had no problem finding affordable stays in city centers in all of the major cities I visited, including Tokyo.
I will admit my ignorance here however and acknowledge there are likely myriad other variables at play here that I'm not considering.
Affordable to you or affordable to the locals? The yen has devalued a lot in the past decade or so, giving foreigners a lot more spending power in Japan and causing the current tourism boom and backlash.
Still affordable to locals. The yen has devalued, and the cost of mansions (condos) have gone up, but single family homes, small apartments, etc are still similarly priced to buy, and rent is generally stable. A major difference is that if you are OK with a tiny apartment, you can get one, and it'll be something you can pay.
You can definitely see affects of the poor economy lately (lots of pawn shops popping up, replacing expensive cafes/restaurants), but housing is still reasonable for now.
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As a visitor, it's probably impossible to know the real cost of living is in different areas, because you're not employed locally, paid local wages, or paying rent and utilities. You are a foreigner with foreign money staying in hotels.
Vancouver dream, not achievable with a median income
I live in a US city.
I have a nature area, gym, pharmacy, grocery store, numerous restaurants, bar, and a bunch of other amenities you just listed. I live basically on the rail line so I can get to the rest of the city in 30 minutes (with more of said amenities) and am at the intersection of two major highways which means I have even more travel options. I'm 2 train stops from a smaller downtown which has every botique shop you can imagine.
I do live in a place that was specifically designed for this but these places are designed and aren't that unheard of in US cities. When I lived in the suburbs I had similar options a few minutes walk from my house.
Vancouver is SF-level drug disorder paired with Detroit salaries, in no way is it more "livable" than a nice US suburb.
Are you implying “nice” US suburbs don’t have drug disorders?
This makes me think you haven't spent time in any of these cities.
99% of Vancouver by area does not have anything resembling 'SF level drug disorder', and if your 'nice US suburb' didn't just punt all of its fucking problems into its nearest downtown, it too would have an East Hastings, or three.
It probably has a lower homicide rate (and a vastly lower vehicular homicide rate) per capita than your 'nice US suburb'.
That same 'nice US suburb' is also, for some reason, packed to the gills with terrified people who have an inexplicable desire to own guns for 'self-defense'. Self-defense from what..?
Having been to quite a number of what I would call 'nice US suburbs', and knowing people from them, a significant fraction of them act like they are living in some lawless Mad Max hellscape. How do you square this circle?
America is too big to compare it with one single city of Canada.
Canada wins either way. You can notice this on reddit discussions too - they are absolutely upset about the orange king. And that motivates Canadians to do better than Americans now - after all you don't want the orange king to be able to ruin Canada here.
The single most frustrating thing about being in Canada is they can't even work out how to use their current grievances to deal with, you know, getting out of our own way like the crazy inter provincial trade restrictions. And yet the complex remains.
One of the insane aspects of this is it's genuinely easier to deal with foreign countries than other parts of the same country . . . but I digress.
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This feels like a what about comment with no meaningful what about.
> Or come to downtown Vancouver
In the last ~20 years Vancouver has almost always been the number one or number two worlds most livable city, so this makes perfect sense.
I live in an American city. I have a yard large enough to play frisbee with my dog. I walk downstairs to go to work. I can walk to a good taqueria and take pole dancing classes a few doors up (someday). There is an evil bank that I could walk to but don't. Cafe, Thai, Soul Food, Vietnamese, Pizza. Closer than all of the walking distance I mentioned is light rail that goes downtown and further. Someday it might even go to Vancouver (the other one sadly :( )
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> Canada basically IS the US with metric and the people talk funny.
I’ve spent considerable time in both - seen something around 46 states and all but two provinces and territories. I’m actually an immigrant from a different OECD county.
On the surface, the US and Canada are fairly similar. Once you live and go to work everyday, the differences are stark.
Every single person in Canada has healthcare. Medical bankruptcy does not exist. People are much kinder, much less prone to anger and violence, and happier. There is vastly less crime. People care about the collective good, not just themselves.
The US is a dog eat dog world. Canada is a work together world.
I’d been living and working in the US for 6 months, and came to Canada for the first time. After 30 minutes I felt more at home and happier than I did at any time during six months in the US.
They are NOT the same. Anyone that thinks they are should live in Canada for a few years and see how they feel.
> Every single person in Canada has healthcare
If you're ok waiting 6-18 months for basically everything that's not life threatening.
The reality is that people either suffer in our system or go abroad for medical treatment.
> I’d been living and working in the US for 6 months, and came to Canada for the first time. After 30 minutes I felt more at home and happier than I did at any time during six months in the US.
Of course, you were on vacation. Wait until you find out that the median Canadian income is ~$33k USD and s typical apartment is ~$2500 per month for 2 bedrooms.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=111002...
I’ve now lived in Canada for 16 years.
I’ve had surgeries, my wife gave birth, plenty of friends have been through the ER and doctors (we mountain bike, ski, snowboard, etc)
Please, please stop making stuff up.
https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/how-many-canadians-go...
https://thehub.ca/2026/01/21/over-105000-patients-left-canad...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/article/4600-atlantic-canadi...
https://www.maplemedglobal.ca/destinations/mexico
https://www.benefitsandpensionsmonitor.com/news/industry-new...
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/i-had-started-saying-g...
Yes, it's fine if you fall into a category where care absolutely can't be delayed or it's life threatening.
And before you accuse me of lying, here's the literal fucking CMA saying wait times are too long and worse than peer countries: https://www.cma.ca/healthcare-for-real/why-do-canadians-wait...
For example, both myself and my 2 year old son had to get surgeries considered "elective" in Canada. Both quoted over a year wait time. I went to an EU country got it done in 3 days, got his surgery done in a couple weeks. He's been recovered for half a year and no one even called back yet to schedule his surgery in Canada.
But yes, I guess when he was born they made space for us in the hospital. Of course he ended up getting most of his yearly checkups and vaccines in the EU as well since over there you can get an appointment in a day here you have to book months out.
And before you call me a liar why don't you check one of the thousand sources that corroborate what I say, or at least a couple I put in this comment.
Also, the thing with medical care, it's fine until it's not. I never needed any medical care until I was 39 so of course I thought it was fine.
Edit - let's also not forget that 23,000 patients die waiting for surgery in Canada per year. That's more than the amount of people murdered in the US per year and not per capita (would be equivalent of 200,000+ Americans dying waiting for surgery).
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/more-than-23000-canadi...
Is the Canadian healthcare system perfect? Of course not.
Is it the best on the world? Clearly not.
Is there lots of room for improvement? You bet, and people like my wife are working hard at it. The Canadian system is vastly better than the us system for the vast majority of people. A system where everyone is covered and there is no concept of medical bankruptcy is obviously better out of the gate.
Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us. I mean, you wanna talk about paid leave days? Maternity leave? Crime? Inequality? Cost of healthcare v outcomes, life expectancy….?
> Also really odd you’ve gone so hard on healthcare when that was just one of the many points that differentiates Canada from the us.
Maybe because 34% of ALL government money in Canada goes towards healthcare. So this means I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars per year for healthcare that I haven't been able to use. Maybe it's bad luck that my family has required several "elective" (note that elective doesn't mean optional) procedures in the last few years, but it's a kick in the teeth to have to pay out of pocket for healthcare in another country when so much of our taxes go towards it here and we can't opt out.
> differentiates Canada from the us.
Not going to lie, the constant US boogeyman is what keeps Canada so fucking mediocre. There's 38 "rich" countries in the world (OECD) and a ton of them are ahead of us. Why aren't we striving to be more like Switzerland, Germany, France or Norway? Why is it some binary of USA or not USA? There's a ton of countries that are safer than CANADA (nevermind the US), get more maternity/paternity days, get more vacation days, get better healthcare, better income, less inequality and a better income/cost ratio. Even the laggards in the EU have better productivity (GDP per capita) growth than Canada and even the most dangerous EU countries are safer than Canada and even the worst EU health systems are better than ours. But we're just going to ignore that because some aspect of the US is worse (also half your points the US will still win because lots companies still provide those things even if they're not required).
If every Canadian spent a year living in central or northern Europe they'd be radicalised enough to overthrow this government. Of course the reality is that Canadians who do move abroad just stay there (more Canadians live abroad than any of our peer countries) so the people that do stay here are the ones with little ambition. For better or worse I was born in Canada AND have a residence in central Europe so it's pretty easy for me to see how Canada has fallen and is being left behind by our peers. If we didn't have resources and easy access to the largest market in the world we'd be a 3rd world country (or more likely would have just never become a country).
TFA explains that Japan is unusual as being the only country in Asia with two cities in the top 10 most liveable cities in the World. That's why they wrote the article. If Spain had been the only country in Europe with two cities in the top 10, they might have done it in Spain.
plus it's the BBC, plenty of UK-ians living in Spain. No need to highlight that when a solid chunk of the readership are in or will go to Hispania
> ... they could find this in pretty much any Spanish city
That's a horseload of bullcrap. For a start there are plenty of pickpockets in many spanish cities (not just Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia). Then there are people visiting houses: don't tell me it doesn't happen for I had my house visited by thieves the one time I forgot to put the alarm on (because I had to run to the ER for my daughter was between life and death).
I happen to know both Spain and Japan very well (I've got family in Japan): there's not anywhere near the level of safety you have in Tokyo in spanish cities.
Not even close.
It's funny how these articles always conveniently skip over the most important point: you first have to fill your city with Japanese people.
I don't think this is as absurd as it sounds. Come to the US Midwest. "Wisconsin nice" is a stereotype, and makes us seem a little bit like hicks, but it's real. People really are polite to one another. A friend from one of the coasts observed after a long trip through rural areas by bike: "Nobody tried to kill me."
Sometimes our infrastructure and zoning are awkward, and we're too reliant on cars, but I still think there's hope.
But nobody in Japan is actually living.
They are all in a rush to get home or work or school.
I feel sorry how little time they actually get to do things they want to do on their own schedule.
Japanese live for the afterlife, but know there isn't one, so it's coming apart.
That kind of thing is extremely rare in the US sadly.
Nowadays. The last 50 years haven't been kind to people in the US.
I'd feel more sorry if they hadn't voted for it every two years for the last 50.
And outside of a handful of New England towns, wherever that kind of city planning exists in the US, those parts of town are inhabited by half-dead zombies on meth whispering threats at you as you walk by. Not a pleasant experience. That's why sane people in the US usually move to suburbia as soon as they can afford a car.
That's probably because the US said that meth addicts aren't allowed to exist indoors. So instead they exist outdoors. Who would've expected that?
But yeah, this description matches the city I live in here in France.
> smell of fried croquettes drifting onto the streets, small shops run by the building owners, easy public transit access
The genius of the BBC is to gloss over that in a culture that isn't Japanese these things all easily become negatives.
Who wants the smell of other people's food, maybe from a cuisine you hate? Or new local businesses cannot start because they can't buy property limiting options for consumers? And public transit stops become noise and litter parties.
All of your complaints sound like someone who is projecting American values and behavior onto another culture.
> Or new local businesses cannot start because they can't buy property limiting options for consumers?
Are a lot of new local businesses starting up in America's suburbs? Is it a problem to have the same shops operating in the community for decades if they serve the community's needs?
Even in Manhattan I saw 'shops' which seemed to have a similar square footage to my bathtub; if there's an opportunity people will find a way.
> And public transit stops become noise and litter parties.
If you have garbage cans at your transit stops and your populace are respectful towards each other then this is also not a problem. If your idea of a transit stop is somehow also some kind of rowdy social event then the problem is not urban planning.
Fundamentally though this is a common American attitude. Look at something that's new and different and say "This would be bad for these reasons", ignoring the fact that dozens of other Western and Eastern countries with dozens of different cultures and behaviors all do these things and it all works out fine.
It's the same as the argument about health care. Socialized medicine would be bad for reasons X, Y, Z, even though if you look at countries which have socialized medicine and a similar standard of living you'll see that not only do those countries not have those problems but also those countries have better health outcomes, longer life expectancy, and more efficient healthcare.
You say that none of this stuff would work in "a culture that isn't Japanese", but what you really mean is that it wouldn't work "in a culture which is American", so maybe that's a good place to start looking for things to change.
Initially I didn't mind those smells and sounds in Asia (it's anywhere not just Japan). But unless you're born there they become annoying quickly, especially if you can smell things and hear public transit in your flat. And because it's a BBC report it's for sure for western audience who was not born there.
> Fundamentally though this is a common American attitude. Look at something that's new and different and say "This would be bad for these reasons"
Among the other bits of wrongness in your comment this is spectacular. Americans are utterly addicted to novelty.
Japan being a well functioning society is not "new and different".
I can tell you haven't been to japan, the noise and litter issues aren't as much of a problem there.
Get to the bottom of why that is and you'll probably have a good understanding where the problems to address are.
Is it the monoethnicity?
Do you think being prosocial is genetic?
I have no idea. You clearly do, because you know an answer you're inviting all of us to guess.
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Exactly what I was thinking. In Europe (e.g. UK or Germany) people often complain when chip shops or other fried food establishments open below them, because of the constant smells.