SHORT #31: 20 Meters of Street

a look at the difference between 'suburbs' in Japan and America

Friends, the drawings this week (there are two of them) both illustrate 20 meters of street. Before we look at them however, I want to provide a little insight, into what is going on in each of the drawings.

This is the ‘story’ part.

Scene I — 20 Meters of a Japanese Suburb:

There is a cat watching two amorous people, who are in turn sharing a drink at an outdoor table. The table is in front of a small 7-room guest house covered in ivy. In room 7 of that guest house, a dad and his son heard a noise outside, which prompted them to open the window, where they find a crow perched on the roof. Next door to the guest house is a glasses maker, who hand crafts frames out of fine Italian cellulose acetate, or sometimes from wood. This morning the glasses maker did his laundry and hung it to dry upstairs before getting to work. His shop is closed at the moment however, because it is now lunchtime and he is next door at こもれび, a small cafe with 10 seats, run by a woman and her mother. Most customers are locals, however there is one bicycle parked out front, which suggests that someone from another neighborhood might be there, too. Next to this small cafe is a building in which three families live on two different floors, and at the moment, the long-haired teenage son of the family on the top floor is putting out some blankets to dry in the sun while glancing over at several birds in the tree on the terrace, mouthing to them “Don’t you dare shit on these blankets, okay?” The son is not usually in charge of sun drying blankets, but his sister is just now stepping out of the front door of the building, heading to the plant shop that occupies the ground floor. She will start her first day apprenticing here today, with the well-known bonsai master who owns the shop. The young boy who lives on the middle floor of this building meanwhile, is outside at the bike shop, and although a moment ago he thought his tire was punctured, he finds it is actually just in need of some air. He will get that air for free, as the bike shop always has an air compressor and hose ready for anyone who needs it.

That is about what goes on in 20 meters of this residential street in Japan.

Scene II — 20 Meters of an American Suburb:

There is a single house with four cars, although two of them are hidden in the garage. There are also two security cameras, three large, well-shaped shrubs, and a trash bin that is not big enough.

Both of these drawings illustrate — as close as I could get — the same length of street, about 20 meters. Both are also considered ‘suburbs’ in their respective countries. Much of the difference has to do with zoning laws and small lot size.

ZONING IN JAPAN

Most of us will easily recognize zoning in American cities, even if we don’t know anything about what zoning is. We might live in a neighborhood where there are, say, several blocks of ‘low-density residential’ zone, where only single-family homes are allowed to be built. A mile down the road, we might run into a low-density commercial zone, in which only strip malls and offices are permitted. Like this, the city is typically broken up into explicit spaces.

Japan on the other hand, almost completely ignores this idea of zoning.

To be clear, there are indeed residential, commercial, and industrial zones in Japan, but they do not operate like their American counterparts. Despite the Japanese using the same ‘residential / commercial / industrial’ nomenclature, homes can basically exist everywhere, and commercial uses can basically exist everywhere.

¹

In essence, mixed-use is implied in almost all zones, rather than restricted.

If you can pretty much build, operate, or live in any kind of building anywhere, then why have zoning at all? Well, the nuance here, comes in size and categorical type of use. That is to say, not all businesses are offensive to the character of a neighborhood, and not all production facilities are noisy hazardous polluters. Japan forgoes the overzealous separation of uses then, in favor of nuanced treatment of mixed-use zones.

According to the Japanese Government, the aims of urban zoning are to:

1. Support efficient urban activities

2. Achieve a pleasant urban environment

3. Create townscapes with significant features

BENEFITS OF SMALL LOTS

Space use is also radically different in Japan than in most of America (but to be fair, it should be noted that most pre-WWII neighborhoods in Europe and the Americas had far smaller streets and lot sizes than they do today).

Nevertheless, in the space of one typical suburban American lot today, the Japanese suburb would put around 7-10 (or more) individual plots of land. You might be able to calculate then, by simple division, one reason why both home ownership and renting are far less expensive overall in Japanese cities than in American cities.

All of this makes me think, if we want to solve the housing crisis, if we want to have more interesting neighborhoods, or to own our own homes, or to walk to a nice little cafe on our street, or to own and operate a nice little cafe on our street, or just to walk more, or to ditch our security systems in favor of eyes on the street, or in general to have more diverse, equitable, efficiently ecological neighborhoods, it might be useful to look at other ways of organizing and zoning our cities.

MORE ON SMALL BUILDINGS

If you enjoyed this writing, I guess you will probably like the story below too. It is the second story ever written here. An oldie but a goodie, as they say.

SHORT #2: Ode to Small Buildings

Gosh. I did not intend to write so much this time. The illustrations took the better part of today, and the writing has been a few days in progress. Now it’s pretty late here. I do enjoy time spent doing this, but a fair warning that the next few weeks are going to be rather busy for us. The wife and I are opening up a new small space (studio/cafe/workshop), and as is our habit, we are doing the remodeling by our own hands, using as much trash and upcycled materials as we can. That is all good, but of course, it takes time! Perhaps instead of an illustrated short, some photos of the new space in progress next time? Let me know what you think of that. Sorry for any typos. Anyone out there want to help edit these in the future?

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Footnote:

1. The only exception to the mixed-use zoning seems to be the Exclusive Industrial Zone, where factories within are deemed too potentially dangerous or toxic for housing or general commercial buildings to exist.