This book demystifies Tokyo's emergent urbanism for an international audience, explaining its origins, its place in today's Tokyo, and its role in the Tokyo of tomorrow.

I can't evaluate the quality of this book's content, as the type size on my copy was so small that, for the first time in my long-time reading experience, the book (in paperback, at least) proved impossible to read. A unique look at Tokyo from architectural and commercial communities' and (briefly) historical perspectives. This emphasis on smallness and fragmented egalitarian ownership has fostered an emergent sense of community and shared responsibility. Despite these attempts to portray the Japanese as a harmonious and homogeneous people since time immemorial, the idea of Japan as a homogeneous nation is actually a relatively recent development.It offered a practical, systematic and objective view of what the city actually is and how it works. But what wasn't quite clear to me was how strata titled malls in places like Singapore - where individual units are owned by different owners rather than a single landlord - has led to the opposite outcome where unit owners have traditionally underinvested in common facilities. Interestingly, Tokyo achieves many things desired in modern urban planning as espoused by Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl but with patterns that differ from those in other cities.

I feel like Emergent Tokyo dismantled some of my preconceptions of the city and replaced them with practical knowledge of how it came to be, how it operates and where it might be heading, as well as what the world can learn from it. His office, Jorge Almazán Architects, is committed to environmentally responsible and socially inclusive projects spanning from interiors and architecture to urban and community design. Really great analysis, with a lot of ideas and suggestions that anybody can advocate for in their own cities.Emergent Tokyo looks at 3 sites: the Mozart-Brahms Lane in Harajuku (near Takeshita Street); Yoyogi Lane and the Kuhonbutsu Promenade near the suburban station of Jiyugaoka. It explained aspects of Tokyo's history and discussed its potential future without any sense of nostalgia or alarmism. This book does its best to destroy so many of those clichés and stereotypes that the vast majority of foreigners make about the streets of Tokyo. This book demystifies Tokyo’s emergent urbanism for an international audience, explaining its origins, its place in today’s Tokyo, and its role in the Tokyo of tomorrow.

Sprinkled with excellent diagrams and illustrations, the book is a fascinating analysis written in a readable way, without too much overly-academic dryness. The author favors bottom-up emergent urban space development versus corporate uniformity with limited public space. This answers it instead via fine-grained urban history and good, clear diagrams, performing a major service in the process.It explains various aspects of the Georgian and Regency house and provides a comprehensive guide to the houses of this period. As Tokyoites ourselves, we uncover how five key features of Tokyo's cityscape - yokochō alleyways, multi-tenant zakkyo buildings, undertrack infills, flowing ankyo streets, and dense low-rise neighborhoods - enable this 'emergent' urbanism, allowing the city to organize itself from the bottom up. Les informations sur les particularités de Tokyo ainsi que leurs origines sont intéressantes, mais la recherche s’arrête là. The spaces under elevated railways were initially occupied by black markets after the war but the authorities (like in the case of Ameyoko Shotengai) regularised these by working with the railway companies to offer micro-lots to vendors under the tracks. This book clearly and beautifully explains the conditions that make Tokyo, how they arose, and why they don't have to be unique to Tokyo.

This is an incredible book for anybody interested in urbanism, and particularly in how localized, small scale patterns of urban development have emerged in Tokyo that define the city and make it what it is. It seems fitting that on these streets you can see greenery growing as a result of the water still flowing underneath. By contrast, two people working minimum-wage jobs cannot afford the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in any of the 23 counties in the New York metropolitan area. This book is a treasure trove of information about how these neighborhoods have evolved over decades. For cities around the globe mired in crisis and seeking new models for the future, Tokyo’s success at balancing between massive growth and local communal life poses a challenge: can we design other cities to emulate its best qualities?

I recently read a very interesting book on urban planning (or lack of planning) in Tokyo, entitled Emergent Tokyo.