[marcell]

I live in Mt View, and I can tell you that a rallying cry of anti-development people is "Do you want Mt View to become Tokyo?"

There is a large contingent of people who own single family homes who want to keep things exactly as they are now. They vote in elections. The contingent of people who DO want development largely doesn't live here, so they don't vote. There is no constituency of people who will live here in 10 years when we have higher density!

[DoreenMichele]

A quick search indicates Mountain View has a population of 80k and Tokyo has a population of nearly 14 million.

SMH.

[chewz]

Tokyo had population of over milion in 1750, long time before cities became designed for cars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Japan_b...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tokyo#Edo_or_Tokuga...

[DoreenMichele]

Los Angeles sprawled before it became the center of gravity for the cult of the car. It was like that when people were getting around via street cars and on foot.

Its sprawl is rooted in the logistics of desert development. You had to develop large tracts to cover the costs of the water infrastructure. Without water infrastructure, you weren't going to develop anything.

There are myriad forces that shape given cities. I'm disinclined to accept the notion that our current car cult mentality is inevitable, irreversible, etc. and we can't do anything good anymore "like they used to do."

[marcell]

FWIW, Tokyo's density is only 3x that of Mt View:

Mt View: 2,300/km2

Tokyo: 6,224.66/km2

[DoreenMichele]

And everything I've heard indicates it has remarkably afffordable housing for a big city. A quick search turned up this article, for example:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2016/08/lai...

Seems like "becoming Tokyo" would be an improvement. (But I still find the comparison hyperbolic and ridiculous. It sounds like a deluded scare tactic, frankly.)

[bane]

This is an excellent video on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6SbFlZMbU

Short answer: a decent house for a family can be had for about $400k in Tokyo and that's considered expensive.

[consp]

My city (Delft) has about the middle of that: 4500/km2 and both public transport and cars work fine.

[tathougies]

To be honest, as a formwr mountain view resident, mountain view also 'works fine'.

[chrisco255]

Hmm, I would be a bit skeptical of that figure without observing incorporated city limits and how far out they extend. Sometimes population figures include the "metro area" as well.

[hkmurakami]

This is a very good point, as there are western regions of Tokyo that after much lower density than central Tokyo. A good measure may be to look at the density in Minato-ku.

[cthalupa]

Minato has a population density of 10850/km2, Shinjuku of 18500/km2, Meguro of 18900/km2, and Nakano wins out at 20,700/km2. (Nakano winning surprised me. It's pretty low-rise for Tokyo!)

[hkmurakami]

Wow did not expect Nakano to be so dense. Maybe more apartments compared to the other zones.

[sjg007]

They should allow single family homes to be turned into 3-4 unit condos. Start there.