[brailsafe]

This seems like a fundamentally suburban perspective, and I don't mean that to be an insult, it's just what all of my small home town family members and friends think, and it overwhelmingly and ironically relates to the real traffic congestion they actually experience coupled with the hypothetical imagined congestion they pre-emptively avoid exposure to by driving instead of getting on the train.

Not that there's _no_ foot traffic congestion or lines, but it's the same thing that happens in a case where there's only one Starbucks in a sprawling suburb or business district at lunch time.

A high density area is likewise it's own complex economy and system that seeks balance, when there's too many people in one area, you just go somewhere else or enjoy or compete with it. That's partly why Tokyo is simultaneously the most populated city on earth and one of the most quiet, clean, and least congested places I've visited.

In my sparsely populated city that sprawls, it's extremely noisy, dusty, time consuming to get around, the infrastructure is failing, and I rarely bump into anyone I know, because people are only visible at the beginning and end of their journey. Meanwhile here in Vancouver I often run into people I know multiple times per day because we're in the same spaces, or I can go somewhere else and not see anyone just like any other place.

[mlrtime]

>Tokyo is simultaneously the most populated city on earth and one of the most quiet, clean, and least congested places I've visited.

Sorry, no this is culture. The same virtues exist in Japanese suburbs, nothing to do with a city.

[brailsafe]

"Partly why". It's just an example, I'm sure other cities are more hectic. I didn't get the impression that Japanese suburbs were particularly different than North American ones in terms of volume levels or how uninteresting they are.

It seems to me that it's mainly cars and a scarcity of places to be that make cities horrible and congested. More pollution, more noise, less space.