Tokyo, Tokyo

June 2016

If London is the most successful city in the world, Paris is its most cultured, and New York is its capital of business—what is Tokyo?

It’s hard to say. This is a city that resists definition, one that refuses to be limited to just one of the multitudinous boxes that we use to label cities. To a certain extent, that’s true of any big city in the world, but this is something that is particularly tangible here, at the heart of what may be the most amazing city I’ve ever been to.

Now, that’s a bold claim to make, especially given the places I’ve been lucky to have gone in my life. But as I stood atop Tokyo Tower’s main observation deck, looking about, I couldn’t think of a better word to describe my feeling than awe. There’s no doubt—Tokyo is an amazing, amazing place.

There’s so much that blows me away about Tokyo; here are a few of the most salient things:

Size

Tokyo is a true megalopolis, center of the world’s biggest metropolitan area by population. Bigger than Beijing, Mumbai, Dhaka or Sao Paulo, this is a city that literally goes on and on—seemingly forever. If you’ve ever been to L.A., you’ll know what I'm talking about; this city stretches for nearly 770 square miles.

This is not a monocentric city, nor a bi- or even a tri-centric one. Indeed, Tokyo has as many as seven major urban centers: Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, Taito, Ikebukuro and Shinagawa. Each has its own major train station, connecting it to a host of smaller residential areas and regional suburbs. It's a level of scale bordering on the staggering.

Density

What makes Tokyo’s size even more amazing, in my opinion, is the sheer density of its construction. Everywhere you look, the sky is punctured by skyscrapers, rising like trees in the veritable savannah of midsized apartment blocks about. Aside from two broad swaths of parkland, there’s hardly a flat stretch to be found, anywhere..

Complexity

Take a look at this map of Tokyo’s subway system and try not to lose yourself. Mind you, this doesn’t even show the crucial Japanese Railway lines that link together this city’s many urban centers, or the myriad commuter trains that crisscross the city in a dizzying lattice. There are probably 6 different ways to get from Point A to Point B in this city—without even touching the excellent bus system.

Industry

Tokyo is the largest urban agglomeration economy in the world, roughly equivalent to Seoul and Paris combined. It hosts fifty-one F500 headquarters, more than twice the number of its next-biggest competitor. This is a city that plays an inestimably central role in the world’s economy, one dwarfed only by London or New York.

Development

Tokyo is perhaps the most highly developed city on Earth, a veritable space-age metropolis that seems like the set of a sci-fi film.

It’s a city of machines, long the world’s center of technological innovation. Here, everything is mechanized, from the vending machines you use to place your ramen order at Ichiran to the whizzing conveyor belts that whisk your sushi out of the kitchen at Uobei. As you enter the bathroom, the toilets greet you with a joyful whirr, lid lifting to reveal a sumptuously heated seat. Think of a task and the Japanese have invented a gadget for it.

But go deeper than the veneer of electronic futurity and you’ll see a level of human development that also amazes. Tokyo is hyperclean, incredibly safe, remarkably liveable. From spotless public restrooms and water fountains to incredible connectivity and accessibility, this city has every single thing a resident could desire from a place—except maybe space.

Chaos

Take a stroll through the winding alleys of Ameyoko or Shibuya (two major commercial areas) and try to remotely process what is going on. Try to find a specific ramen shop or tempura-ya, even using Google Maps. Make your best effort to walk through the massive Shinjuku station without getting caught up in the surging human wave.

In terms of discord, Tokyo is up there with the most insane cities in Asia, a sensory overload like few others. Everywhere you look there is a billboard to be seen, a sign to be read, a loudspeaker to be heard, a smell to be smelt. It truly is pandemonium of the first order.

Order

And yet, amidst this roiling sea of people and trains and cars…there is order. I’ve never seen a place so complicated as Tokyo; I’ve also never seen one that works as smoothly and efficiently, nor one whose people are a tenth as considerate.

Cities are nothing but agglomerations of people, after all, and this one is defined by its denizens’ incredible efficiency, politeness, and order—virtues central to the Japanese culture. Tokyo is a place where the trains run on time—all of them. It’s a city where hundreds of commuters politely queue up to board an escalator, slower passengers to the left and faster ones to the right. Where you’ll scarcely hear a car horn if you try, where bicyclists apologize to you if you inadvertently get in their way. Despite the unbelievable intricacy and staggering scale of the place, Tokyo somehow manages to run like clockwork.

The preeminent city of a continent defined by contrast, Tokyo is unsurprisingly a city rife with remarkable juxtaposition.

Take a walk through the chaotic Akihabara Electric Market, and you will have no doubt you are in the heart of Asia. Swing a right and walk five blocks to Shin-Ochanomizu Station…and all of a sudden you could be in any business district in the world. Two blocks from ¥430 soba shops are restaurants peddling ¥5340 sushi plates.

Depart Shinjuku Station’s East Gate, which nearly 4 million commuters pass through every day, and half a klick later you’re in the middle of a Japanese forest at Shinjuku-Gyoen—a serene escape from the concrete jungle about. Twenty minutes from the Senso-ji temple shrine in Asakusa—a district seemingly stuck in the 18th century—and you’re at the foot of the magnificent Skytree, a towering symbol of modernity that reaches high above anything else in the sky.

Size and density, history and modernity, order and chaos—I could go on and on. Tokyo is a city that is more developed than Europe’s best…but one that is still unmistakably Asian. There are more restaurants in Tokyo, it seems, than there are stars in the night sky—and you could spend ten lifetimes eating your way through the city and hardly touch half of them. It’s a place that struck me dumb, sat me down, and forced me to completely rethink my assumptions about Asia.

Tokyo is a city that every other place in the world should aspire to be, but one most of them can scarcely hold a candle to. It’s a superlative place, and I’m so incredibly lucky to have been able to squeeze it in to my trip.

I can’t wait to come back.