Having just gotten back, this article by Blane Hardin, one of the best urban journalists around, captures the soul of Tokyo (h/t: Ken McGuffin).
Although it is the political, economic and cultural center of Japan, Tokyo
itself has no real center. It’s a jumble of densely populated districts that are
themselves big cities, hubs for the frenetic inbound rush and exhausted homeward
retreat of millions upon millions of subway and train commuters. The cyclical
crush of humanity approaches chaos but never quite gets there — the Japanese
being sticklers for rules. A unifying thread, if there is one, is movement. But transience across such a vast canvas reveals little. To sharpen the focus, consider a triptych of
miniatures — three small stop-frames that suggest the larger rhythms of life in
the planet’s preeminent urban space.
One teeny, little correction. The article states that Tokyo is by far the biggest global city in the world. Well sort of. It is the biggest individual city in the advanced world. However, some of the cities of the emerging economy are bigger. And when we look at the world in term of the more appropriate category of mega-region – that is as economically connected units as opposed to political jurisdictions, it is just slightly bigger that Bos-Wash.
