Yes it’s statistically true you probably wont be set on fire while riding the Blue line — but man oh man does American cities not get it
If you want Abundance — lots of people living close together having to share stuff like subway cars, parks, and neighborhoods - then you first need foundational safety.
That is you need citizens who can fully trust their neighbors, and that means you need zero tolerance for antisocial behavior, including having someone walking around with a rap sheet that should have long ago eliminated them from free access to public spaces.
You know who has an abundance agenda? China, and I’m guessing America won’t accept that level of surveillance, anti-liberal policies, and authoritarianism. Also, Japan, but again, America doesn’t seem to want (or enact) their level of personal responsibility, immigration restrictions, and self control
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I love the US, and NYC, but coming back from five weeks in Japan/Korea can be so demoralizing.
The E train from Jamaica to Port Authority was a mess. Filthy, depressing, and a minefield of possible problems. The car I was in had at least six guys in various states of distress. I sat next to one, a clearly mentally compromised man, muttering to himself, who made it clear he didn't like me being so close, but I bet he wasn't having a bad day.
He wasn't because he was drugged into lethargy, but you never really can tell, and you always risk a miscalculation.
I'm a pretty large guy and I've spent a lot of time around people like this, so I wasn't worried, but I felt bad for the women on there, some with kids, who have to play a far riskier game when riding the subway.
Sure, the odds of something bad happening are small, but they should be zero, and they could be, if we only enforced the rules.
The only open seats were next to this man, and I got on with a young latino women with heavy bags also coming from JFK. She waited until I sat next to the man, before sitting next to me, using me as a shield. Made sense, and partly why I sat so close to him. You could see the wheels spinning in her mind, figuring out if it was "worth it'
This isn't a new thing, and isn't only about Japan. I've written about it for over a decade, including this piece from three years ago after coming back from Bulgaria!
There's a standard quip from third-world immigrants on why their country doesn't work but America does: "Back home, you have to bribe government to do their job. Here, the government fines you if you don't do yours properly."
I don't think Americans understand just how pervasive, and debilitating, corruption is in 3rd world and how central "not being openly corrupt" is to a functional society.
Walking through Kenya, and Uganda, I was constantly stopped by policemen, security guards, and people pretending to be either, and told I was breaking some made up law ( like vaping on the street) and that I needed to pay them an immediate fine, or they would drag me down to the station.
It got to the point, after a few days, where I would just shoot them a bird and tell them to F-off. Not the official ones with uniforms and guns -- I would lie to them and say I worked for the US embassy and we needed to go there and deal with the issue. They always dropped it then.
My favorite "grift" was in Nairobi, during a protest/riot -- right after the police came in and cleared up the downtown with tear gas, I went down and out to get food, and the head of the police unit who had cleared my block, really gregarious guy, stopped me, and told me a man like myself needed company, and that he had plenty of very young beautiful women who worked for him who he could send up to my room, for a fee of course, and when I politely declined he then said there was a riot tax and which I needed to pay him immedietly and that's when I pulled out the "I work for the US embassy" thing, and he dropped it.
My only strong view on city planning is extensive mixed use zoning is the magical key that unlocks a whole host of positives and what Americans think they want when visiting a place like Japan is actually that, and then of course they would like to have citizens that are respectful of each other but you can't city plan that into existence and US doesn't want that anyways.
I don't know if advocating for moving away from the exclusive Euclidean zoning we use in US (segregated regions for residential, commercial, industrial) makes me a NIMBY or YIMBY, but those camps are annoying anyways.
In my 8 factor walkablity model the largest variable is effectively "mixed use zoning", or what I label, "Localized distribution" -- meaning there is always what you need in walking distance because it isn't confined to exclusive zones
Since I walk about 3 hours a day, I try a lot of audiobooks & podcasts and so I stumbled onto this weird podcast about the history of rock music and after five minutes I was about to eject it because it sounded like it was made by a crazy guy in his basement, but his absolute dedication, encyclopedic knowledge, and understated enthusiasm for the history of the rock music won me over and now I think it might be the best podcast ever.
I’ve never seen a better example of amateur professionalism. No corporation would allow him to make the choices he has made, and that is a such great thing because his intense passion is on full display
Believe me. Give it thirty minutes. You are going to want to eject after two. Stick with it.
Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) is one of the most unique cities I've walked. Almost zero tourist, because very few people even know it exists.
I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking for a relaxing vacation, but if you want to really feel your in a different place, a bit detached from the rest of the world, it's safe, inexpensive, and interesting
About ten miles outside of Bishkek is a 3 square mile market, built, lego like, from shipping containers.
Almost entirely self-regulated, it started after fall of USSR as a place to swap goods -- where they came from, and how, nobody asked, or cared
Slapped down in the middle of an otherwise bland neighborhood of mud roads and single homes it's now Central Asia’s largest marketplace.
A complex of stores inside freight containers selling anything and everything you want: Toys, TVs, Jeans, Bras, Bikes, Spices, Trinkets, X-mas decorations, Tools, Gas Masks, Hijabs, Watches, Wall clocks, Slippers, Shampoo, Stuffed Animals, and on and on.
All of it imported from China, Russia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, South Korea, India, Iran, etc. Carrying on, in a very modern way, Kyrgyzstan’s Silk Road tradition.
It’s a microcosm of our very material global supply chain world. A visceral picture of how our world of stuff works. How the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the things that fill our homes, come from all over, shipped across the globe in rectangular metal boxes.
It has it's own restaurants, a mosque, and keeps expanding.
Traveling to places like Bishkek has helped me understand history better. Not from going to museums, or historical sites, but from seeing how people physically live, especially those without a lot of money.
The marketplaces of Bishkek, or Istanbul, are not that removed from the marketplaces of ancient Rome, or Paris in the middle ages. They are crowded, loud, busy, colorful, communal, and self-organized. Or to put it simply, messy.
When you go to a historical monument, like the ruins of an ancient building, or a preserved cathedral or mosque, you get the entirely wrong image of the past. You see quiet, dignified, empty, sterile spaces. Places where you are scared to touch something. Places where people walk around in hushed voices.
That’s nothing like what the past was, and you can see that in the present in places like the shipping container market.