[obviouslygreen]

Yep. I really, really dislike cities in the US (where I'm from), but now I live in Shinjuku, and it's great! Being able to just stroll down any alley and find an incredible amount of varied restaurants and shopped stacked on top of each other is brilliant. Definitely one of the reasons I like it here.

[pouetpouet]

I live in Europe, and love the bakeries within walking distance. I can walk to the movies or the opera house in a city of 300k.

[mrschwabe]

Indeed. Small business is literally woven into Japanese culture :)

It's in contrast to modern development trends you're seeing in NA - seems like almost all new commercial development is in the form of large parking lots + big box brands & international franchises in the same layout configurations give or take a liquor store or restaurant or two.

I was thinking about this the other day, how wasteful these mega-lot developments are - given all the other existing areas of a city that could be utilized & improved. Instead, you rarely see new commercial investment in older areas and slowly and surely parts of a city become ignored and deteriorate. If a neighborhood is lucky, investment may someday return - but usually in the form of an artificially incentivized (ie- tax/political) effort. Things might just naturally balance out and be less wasteful if small business was as pervasive as it is in Japan; thanks in large part to their zoning system.