Japan's lack of zoning regs

[dtkvictim]

Based on my link above, I don't think saying the Google building would have just been approved would be so cut and dry. Certainly the public consultation and compromise wouldn't exist, but the building might not be allowed. It's either the zoning allows it or it doesn't.

The cultural aspect is a funny one. When I was Googling for more information on this, I came across quite a lot of comments from (presumably) westerners living in Japan complaining that they don't think Japanese zoning is restrictive enough and leads to too many problems. I'd be curious to know how Japanese people feel about it. Personally I sort of understand; despite the fact that I think Tokyo is probably the best overall city in the world, I would still hesitate to say I'd want to live there.

1) The city had correct zoning which Google followed, neighbours asked it to changed, IIRC. I mean, that’s how I recall it. 

2) What sort of “problems”? Not that I study Japanese culture a lot, I do know a little bit. Any problem wouldn’t involve litter, stolen property, break-ins, etc. The problem I could see is crowded sidewalks, streets and transit. Tokyo has about 30M people living in it, which is almost like all of Canada in a very small space. To be honest, I wouldn’t want to live there either.

1) I was just trying to highlight the difference between here and Japan. The difference isn't that they can just build whatever they want anywhere, the difference is that if they meet the zoning regulations then the neighbors don't really have a say.

2) I just skimmed through their comments because I didn't really care that much, and I'm not saying that I believe their opinions are valid. The complaint I saw most often was that they felt there were too many factories in close proximity to housing (and this primarily becomes lower income housing because of that). I know you can find garbage incinerators all over in the middle of the city (I have no idea about the health/environmental effects of burning trash though, maybe it's fine). Another complaint that I am not phrasing quite as well as they did, was somewhat about a lack of cohesiveness, or a sort of chaos to it.

As I think about it though, I'd almost certainly rather live in Tokyo than Toronto (if we ignore work culture), so my feelings probably aren't based around a preference for our zoning over theirs. I'm just not much of a big city person.