Outgrowing Jane Jacobs

By NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF

TIME passes. Jane Jacobs, the great lover of cities who stared down Robert Moses' bulldozers and saved many of New York's most precious neighborhoods, died last week at 89. It is a loss for those who value urban life. But her death may also give us permission to move on, to let go of the obsessive belief that Ms. Jacobs held the answer to every evil that faces the contemporary city.

For New Yorkers, Ms. Jacobs's life remains suspended between two seismic events: The publication, in 1961, of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and her showdown in the late 60's with Mr. Moses over a proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway that would have reduced much of SoHo's handsome cast-iron district to rubble. The expressway was killed by Mayor John V. Lindsay in 1969.

By then, Ms. Jacobs had fled for Toronto, and Mr. Moses, who died in 1981, had lost much of his power and prestige. But in the popular imagination, the two are forever at odds: the imperious city planning czar versus the tireless public advocate. Today, the pendulum of opinion has swung so far in favor of Ms. Jacobs that it has distorted the public's understanding of urban planning. As we mourn her death, we may want to mourn a bit for Mr. Moses as well.

Her argument was simple enough, radically so. Horrified at the tabula rasa urban renewal strategies of the 1950's, she argued for a return to the small-scale city she found in Greenwich Village and the North End of Boston — the lively street life of front stoops, corner shops and casual personal interaction.

Mr. Moses, tellingly, once dismissed her and her ilk as "nobody but a bunch of mothers." He was partly right. By standing up for the intricate, individual relationships that define the inner life of cities, she allowed a generation to challenge the authority of patronizing — and uniformly male — city planners in gray suits.

An urban flâneur of the first order, she reminded us that cities could only be fully understood with our eyes, feet and ears — not from the distant abstraction of architectural drawings.

But the problems of the 20th-century city were vast and complicated. Ms. Jacobs had few answers for suburban sprawl or the nation's dependence on cars, which remains critical to the development of American cities. She could not see that the same freeway that isolated her beloved, working-class North End from downtown Boston also protected it from gentrification. And she never understood cities like Los Angeles, whose beauty stems from the heroic scale of its freeways and its strange interweaving of man-made and natural environments.

The threats facing the contemporary city are not what they were when she first formed her ideas, now nearly 50 years ago. The activists of Ms. Jacobs's generation may have saved SoHo from Mr. Moses' bulldozers, but they could not stop it from becoming an open-air mall.

The old buildings are still there, the streets are once again paved in cobblestone, but the rich mix of manufacturers, artists and gallery owners has been replaced by homogenous crowds of lemming-like shoppers. Nothing is produced there any more. It is a corner of the city that is nearly as soulless, in its way, as the superblocks that Ms. Jacobs so reviled.

Nor did Ms. Jacobs really offer an adequate long-term solution for the boom in urban population, which cannot be solved simply through incremental growth in existing neighborhoods.

Just as cities change, so do our perceptions of them. Architects now in their mid-40's — Ms. Jacobs's age when she published "Death and Life" — do not share their parents' unqualified hatred of Modernist developments.

They understand that an endless grid of brick towers and barren plazas is dehumanizing. But on an urban island packed with visual noise, the plaza at Lincoln Center — or even at the old World Trade Center — can be a welcome contrast in scale, a moment of haunting silence amid the chaos. Similarly, the shimmering glass towers that frame lower Park Avenue are awe-inspiring precisely because they offer a sharp contrast to the quiet tree-lined streets of the Upper East Side.

Perhaps her legacy has been most damaged by those who continue to treat "Death and Life" as sacred text rather than as what it was: a heroic cri de coeur. Of those, the New Urbanists are the most guilty; in many cases, they reduced her vision of corner shops and busy streets to a superficial town formula that creates the illusion of urban diversity, but masks a stifling uniformity at its core.

This is true in large-scale projects as diverse as Battery Park City or Celebration, Fla., where narrow streets and parks were supposed to create an immediate sense of community. As it turns out, what the New Urbanists could not reproduce was the most critical aspect of Ms. Jacobs's vision, the intimate neighborhood that is built — brick by brick, family by family — over a century.

For those who could not see it, the hollowness of this urban planning strategy was finally exposed in New Orleans, where planners were tarting up historic districts for tourists, even as deeper social problems were being ignored and its infrastructure was crumbling.

The answer to such superficiality is not to resurrect the spirit of Robert Moses. But in retrospect his vision, however flawed, represented an America that still believed a healthy government would provide the infrastructure — roads, parks, bridges — that binds us into a nation. Ms. Jacobs, at her best, was fighting to preserve the more delicate bonds that tie us to a community. A city, to survive and flourish, needs both perspectives.

The lesson we should take from Ms. Jacobs was her ability to look at the city with her eyes wide open, without rigid prejudices. Maybe we should see where that lesson leads next.

- NYT, April 30, 2006

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Japan 2006: Culture, Technology and Contrast

Shinjuku

Although large developments such as Ropponggi Hills and the department stores around train stations are ubiquitous in Japan, small businesses continue to thrive. This may be the only place in the world where Walmarts and other hypermarts would not succeed in the near future.

Steps at Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto

Strength of the Small Businesses
Everywhere you go in Japan, you can see small businesses competing side by side with giant commercial thigamajigs. The strength of the local small businesses, restaurants and convenience stores could well lie in the uniqueness of Japanese culture. This is a country that prides a lot on their consumption of detailed craftsmanship and superb quality. This is a people that believe that the gift wrapping is just as important as the gift. In this way, Japanese are prepared to pay high prices for good quality products, and stores like Wal-mart, with their cheap, Made in China or some other developing country items will not find favor here.

Also, not many Japanese own cars. Even if they do, Japanese cars tend to be small. Grocery shopping is often done on a daily basis (using trains and maybe bicycles) and rarely do people buy in bulk. Such cultural practices are antithesis to the low-cost-high-volume marketing axiom of the hypermarts.

Service Standards
Customer service standards are also unbeatable. When I bought my Porter bag at OICITY, the staff eagerly chatted with me in his halting English while putting my purchase in a paper bag, then waterproofing the bag, before escorting me to the elevator and handing me my purchase with a complimentary 90 degree bow.

Technology
Any mention of Japan cannot omit the high-tech wizardry of the country. From the overly efficient train system (which cost me a missed flight due to its remarkable punctuality) to vending machines for ordering restaurant meals, and from the slew of electronic gadgetry at Akihabara to the multi-function toilet bowls, nothing seemed to be forgotten.

It is a country where everything that needs to be invented has been invented and that thought is put into everything. It is a very thoughtful country. (Yet, not everything is so labor-unintensive. I have seen teams of 4 or more men going around cleaning advertizing panels, doing a job that could well be managed by one man.)

Land of Shadows. Land of Contrast.
It is a land of contrast and a fascinating one at that. Japan is more than the tourist images that we have come to know, or of the minimalistic sushi and green tea (though they were commonplace). Despite its homogeneity and its highly conformist mentality, the country offers contrasts in numerous striking ways.

There is the Japan of temples and shrines of mythical image-laden proportions. But there is also a real Japan, with its over-conformed salarymen and the bubbling underbelly of niched sub-cultures that are held together in a delicate balance of new and old, modernity and tradition.

"Not another cherry blossom"

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Japan 2006: Roppongi Hills

The Garden at Roppongi Hills

Roppongi and Akasaka are where the dance scene and the rich people reside. Roppongi Hills, a massive redevelopment project, has been trumpeted as an urban miracle. Standing on a huge swath of a formerly dilapidated area, this major master plan project was 17 years, 280 billion yen in the making.

View of Tokyo from the Roppongi Hills Observatory Deck

The development tycoon Mori Minoru has created a office complex with its own shopping/entertainment outlets, art museum and charming gardens. In its first year since opening, Ropponggi Hills has seen 40 million visitors, more than 4 times the annual tourist arrival at Changi Airport.

I believe that much of Roppongi Hills' success, which could be emulated in the new mega-developments planned for Singapore, lies in its attractive urban design elements. The massive scale of the development is toned down through inviting ground-level entrances and undulating outdoor gardens and amphitheatres.

The interior of the building feature imaginative arrangement of spaces to create an interactive experience for the visitor. The urban furniture and architecture themes are eclectic and add to the organic nature of the project. These make it an even more manageable experience for the visitor.

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Japan 2006: Tokyo Old and New

Senso-ji at Asakusa

Old Tokyo, with its rougher crowd, can still be experienced on the east side of Tokyo, at Ueno, Asakusa, Nippori and Akihabara. (Nippori is where I stayed in a ryokan (traditional inn) with a obasan/innkeeper whom I can only describe as "cat-like".)

Tsukiji Wholesale Market

Tsukiji, right smack beside the corporate functioning of Marunouchi, is the site of the main fish market of Tokyo. This is the place to go for the freshest sashimi in town. Plans have been made to relocate the market, a tourist attraction in its own right, to further out of the city to make way for the expansion of the financial sector. Knowing the importance Japanese place on their food and their freshness, government officials would have to work very hard to overcome the public resistance to the plans.

Akihabara is the electronic centre of Tokyo. A former clustering of radio repair stores (which some still exist) have evolved in typical modern Japanese fashion into towering buildings of retail spaces and haphazard road layouts.

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Japan 2006: Shinjuku, Shibuya and Harajuku

Streets of Ginza

Tokyo itself is somewhat of a monster. Like Los Angeles, it is made up of several 'downtowns' such as Shinjuku, Shibuya and Ropponggi. Ginza and Marounochi remain the main business and financial centers, though Shinjuku, with its ever changing skyline is fast catching up. These places are where shiny skyscrapers and ultra-modernist architecture gelled into a staid landscape of neon, steel (Japan is a major exporter of steel) and glass.

Outside Shibuya train station

Ginza is also a shopping belt ala Fifth Avenue and Champs-Elysee with high-end fashion and couture boutiques. It has a Louis Vuitton store that is even bigger than the one in Paris to cater to the brand-whores that are Japanese.

But the larger shopping nexus are located at Shinjuku, Shibuya and Harajuku.

Shinjuku
Shinjuku, with its all-directional simultaneous pedestrain crossing, epitomizes the orderly chaos that I see in Japan. Here, large neon billboards battle with videotron screens to catch anyone and everyone's attention, while loud speakers and blaring music from the stores compete aggressively with the amateur rock bands on the streets.

At Kabuki-cho ward at Shinjuku, pachinko parlors, sex shops, love hotels (to cater to dating adults who continue to live in their parents' house with non-ideal acoustic proofing walls) and ramen noodle houses stand cheek by jowl on the pedestrianized streets. Menawhile, teenage "tribes", who are less like gangs but still as exclusive, fight for turf at the most popular spots.

Shibuya and Harajuku
Over at Shibuya, the Omotesando - a shopping boulevard, is less sleazy but equally ostentatious and high-end. Throngs of crowd meet outside the Shibuya station at the statue of Hachiko the dog. Hachiko is the famous dog who faithfully waited at the train station everyday for his deceased owner, a professor at the Imperial University, till his very own demise.

Immediately north and in great contrast to Shibuya is Harajuku, where small indie stores and second-hand goods dominate. This is also the setting for the Harajuku kids - teenagers, usually female, come dressed in outrageous costumes of goth, nurse suits and anime characters, to live out a fantasy away from the patriachal conservatism that is at home.

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Japan 2006: Tokyo Trains

The Hikari (Shinkansen) Service: Tokyo - Shin-Kobe

My trip ended where I began, in Tokyo, onboard the relentlessly efficient Shinkansen or more commonly known as the bullet train. Trains in Japan are alarmingly punctual. I was told that the average train delay for each Shinkansen service is roughly 30 sec per year. Considering that these trains take 3-hour long journeys across Japan, it clearly put other train systems worldwide to shame.

Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Tokyo is served by a multitude of rail systems including the JR - a corporatized former national entity, and private subways and at-grade railways. Rush hour in the morning can be quite traumatic for new visitors. Though less common nowadays, train staff still wield their white gloves to stuff the handbags and briefcases behind the closing train doors. And like most big cities, women-only cars are common on local rail service.

When I was in Tokyo, a train from the suburb had arrived late during the rush hour. The train operator staff could be seen handing out train delay notices to dishevelled salarymen for them to show their bosses! Using train delay as an excuse for tardiness does not work in Japan. One is also dissuaded from making cellphone calls in the train, which is incredibly obeyed by most people.

Transit-Oriented Development
The public rail system in Japan, like Hong Kong and Singapore, are privately-owned and buck the trend of rail systems in other parts of the world. In Europe and America, public rail systems are heavily-subsidized, lost-making enterprises supporting by taxpayers' money.

However, in Japan, as well as in Hong Kong, rail companies make their money through land development. Train companies own the land around their stations. These parcels, being so close to a public transport node, naturally fetch very high rent. Thus, big departmental stores like Takashimaya, Isetan and Daimaru cluster around train stations, paying dearly for the land to the rail company. It does make me rethink Singapore's model of public transportation and the excessive fear of large commercial quantums at MRT stations.

Train Schedules and Capsule Hotels
What is unexpected for a country that relies so intensively on its rail infrastructure is that most train services stop around midnight. Thus, clubs and pubs would stay open well into the morning for clients to wait in so that they can catch the first train in the morning. This was what Tsu and Mari did on their wedding night.

This practice has also spawn off a whole industry of motels and capsule hotels that charge hourly rates. Salarymen, out for a night of izakaya (drunken reverly with colleagues), take advantage of these places as shelter for a night. Most of these places only cater to male clientele, and having stayed in one in Tokyo, I am glad to say that they are largely clean and well-maintained and have a fraternal dorm-like feel to them. (Another surprise: Most pachinko parlors close at 11pm.)

Of course taking a taxi in Tokyo is out of the question for most of these salarymen. The taxi meter starts at 760 yen which is about 7 US Dollars, and the meter ticks away rather rapidly.

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Japan 2006: Kyoto - Temples and Gardens

Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto

Temples and Gardens of Kyoto
Nevertheless, the manicured gardens and the sakura-infused temples would easily be the highlight of the any visitor's trip. Kiyomizu-dera was my favorite spot in Kyoto, with its mix of Buddhist and Shinto architecture draped onto the edge of the eastern hills. Kinkaku-ji, where a gold pavilion takes centrestage is also a must-see. Ryoan-ji is a understated temple with an immaculately austere and minimalist rock garden, prepared every morning by the resident monks.

Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto

Kyoto Protocol
For any self-respecting environmentalist, Kyoto would also be synonymous with the Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, conservation and recycling are so big they have become an unconscious part of life in Japan. All trash bins provide recycling receptacles clearly labelled for different types of recyclable materials. In the Japanese film "It's Only Talk" which I caught last weekend at the SIFF, one of the subplots revolves around a playground, in the Tokyo suburb of Kamata, that is made up of rubber tires. There is even an entire 3-storey-tall T-rex made up of rubber tires. But things are starting to stir as this article illustrates.

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Japan 2006: Kyoto

Zen Garden at Ryoan-ji

The must-see destination of Japan would have to be Kyoto. The capital city for more than a thousand years, Kyoto is chokeful of Buddhist temples, palaces and zen gardens.

The city is partly a source for the classic image of Japan: small traditional cobbled streets, zen Buddhist temples and geishas in bright kimonos. Though much of this image - an image cultivated no doubt by movies like Lost in Translation and Memoirs of a Geisha, can be misleading. I did see a few geishas (not couting the rent-a-geishas that eagerly line up for photo ops with tourists) and visited beautiful shrines. But much of Kyoto is like the rest of urban Japan, where large departmental stores and telecommunication towers dominate the skyline.

The new Kyoto train station

A visitor is likely to first arrive at Kyoto at the spankling new train terminal, a typically ultra-modern giant complex of shops, steel, restaurants and hotels (mixed use has always been big in the urban areas). Tourism forms a large part of the Kyoto economy, as seen in its endless stores of handicrafts and Japanese candies. Giant toriis (the red wooden gates) in the major shrines, iconic of the Shinto religion, are sponsored by corporate entities and bear their names on the columns.

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Japan 2006: Kobe and Osaka

Dotombori, Osaka

Kobe
Kobe, where the reception was held, was the site of the catastrophic earthquake of 1995. But redevelopment had advanced so dramatically that it was impossible to see any damage the city had sustained.

Kobe is also famous for Kobe beef. Incidentally beef was first introduced to Japan by westerners. Since then, the Japanese life expectancy has decreased (just kidding). But frankly, with all the alcohol, smoking, work-related stress and more MacDonalds than ever before, the average Japanese life expectancy is bound to drop in the future. I did not try Kobe beef as it was more expensive than what one can get at Angus House at Ngee Ann City.

Osaka Castle

Osaka
I also visited Osaka, the second most-populous city in Japan. Osaka, and Osakans included, is known to be louder and brassier than the rest of Japan. In fact, the entire Kansei area (including Osaka and Kobe), a flat plain and the main rice-growing region of Japan, has a remarkably different culture and temperament to other parts of Japan.

According to my Japanese friend, Kyohi, the entrepreneurial computer programmer who grew up in Tokyo, it is easy to tell apart an Osakan from and a Tokyo-ite. (Mariko is from Tokyo, while Tsuyoshi, known for stripping whenever he is drunk, is from Kobe.) Osakans speak a different dialect than Tokyo-ites, and talk louder on the train. Osakans would even try to bargain for prices in Tokyo even though few shops ever entertain bargaining. Osakans even stand on the different side of the escalator than in Tokyo, which contradicts the local driving direction.

Dotombori, the entertainment and dining hub of the city, is equally telling of the this Kansei spirit. The area is a lively place with brightly-lit restaurants and equally loud waitresses assaulting you on all your senses. At times, it feels more like Las Vegas than Las Vegas itself. In fact, this apparently disastrous planning of the city is one reason why Tsuyoshi decided to pursue a Masters degree in planning at USC.

The cuisine of Osaka is just as loud and in-your-face. Mayonnaise-topped takoyaki (flour balls stuffed with octupus) and okonomiyaki (egg pancakes filled with almost anything you can think of), two of the local delights, are unusually piquant and savoury for what foreigners have come to expect of Japanese cuisine.

While in Osaka, I visited Osaka-jo (Osaka Castle), a well-embraced local attraction fully restored in recent years. Do not be fooled by its austere facade. The inside of the castle houses a modern musuem and even have elevators. Osaka-jo is located in the midst of the city park, where hanami parties are held side by side with rave concerts for teenagers.

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Japan 2006: Tsuyoshi and Mariko's Wedding

Mari and Tsu

The main purpose of my visit was to attend Tsuyoshi and Mariko's wedding reception. This ceremony in Kobe was the second ceremony for the couple, after their first one held in Los Angeles last December. The couple grew up in France, and the wedding ceremony was decidedly modern and westernized. The main reception was held at a European colonial-looking house-turned-French restaurant. Although Japanese do receive money for wedding receptions, a la local wedding hongbaos, this particular reception "charges" admission fees, so as to cover the cost of the reception.

Himeji Castle, Himeji

Mari wore a traditional kimono handed down to her by her mum, but no one in her family knew how to put one on. (She later changed into a white western-style wedding gown.)

Tsuyoshi chose a western suit as he was not prepared for the white-face make-up that goes with the traditional men's costume. Before I arrived, I was told that the typical dress code for male guests is black suit and white shirt, with a white tie. Of course I did not have a white tie. Fortunately, not many attendees wore the white shirt/tie combo.

The Reception
The reception was a relatively casual affair with more than enough speeches by senior relations (e.g. former bosses, ex-professors) peppered with polite anecdotes about the wedding couple's quirks and whims.

The afternoon reception was followed by an evening drinking party at a local pub which only the younger folks attended. Admission fee was levied and a free flow of alcohol ensued. Here, more adult-themed games and jokes took center-stage.

Following this was another party, and at a karaoke lounge no less. Again admission fee was charged and the American-invention 'sake bombs' (sake and beer) was enthusiastically embraced by the couple's friends, as were Beatles songs. The party ended at midnight and I decided to retire for the night. The wedding couple on the other hand stayed up for more drinking throughtout the night, catching the first available train the next morning.

What is interesting about Japanese wedding ceremonies (also an American by-product, largely due to the influence of Christian beliefs in the sacrament and ceremonial nature of marriage), is their seemingly religious nature. Although Japanese today are mostly non-religious, they do hold wedding ceremonies in churches and Buddhist temples, sometimes one right after the other.

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Japan 2006: April 7th - 17th

Kiyomizu-dera, Kyoto

April 7. It was a culture shock for me when I first arrived in Tokyo. A huge metropolis, bursting with people (14 million strong), cars and trains, Tokyo is chaotic and yet paradoxically orderly. It is the capital of one of the most culturally homogenous country in the world, and conformity still holds sway over most activities. But sub-cultures thrive and there is ample room in this big city for anonymity as well as individuality.

Ryoan-ji, Kyoto

I visited Japan during the Spring season, where the 'Sakura' (cherry blossoms) were in bloom. Parks and roadsides were awashed in a sea of pinks and whites, and hanami (flower-viewing) parties were held everywhere where the trees were in bloom. Sakura is the national flower of Japan, though it bloom is very short-lived. This has made the name Sakura an unpopular choice for newborns. No doubt, the short-lived nature of the bloom have added to the excitement and fervour of celebrating their flowering.

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MediaWatch: TV Watch

So You Think You Can Dance
: Great concept and the trailers look promising, but the show is flat, the hosting atrocious and the drama missing.

Amazing Race
: One of the best reality tv programmes, AR continues to excite, although it appears that the show is running out of destinations (how many times have they been to Moscow?). Also, production value has decreased and contestants too often auto-narrate themselves.

LOST
: Much hyped, and still appears rather exciting. But how long can they keep the mystery?

Desperate Housewives
: Equally impressive sophomore season as LOST, though the sparks are not as bright as in the first season.

Grey's Anatomy
: The true star of Monday night TV. Smart, witty, fun. What you wished Scrubs could be. Great intelletual late-night fodder, an antidote to Paris and Nicole's A Simple Life: Interns.

TV Movies - Goodbye, Lenin! Erin Brokovich, The Hours
: Despite incessantly bad movies such as Eight-Legged F*****, occasional tv gems such as Goodbye, Lenin! and The Hours rekindle whatever dying hopes you may have for local TV standards.

Asian Drama - Train Man
: Japanese reality-based comedy Train Man reprises the unmistakably Japanese schtick humor with the story of a nerdy salaryman in the pursuit of his dream girl, through the help of internet chatroom buddies.

Local Superstar Fad - SuperBand
: Campus Superstar hit the notes well with its adolescent target audience, but the true star of local TV's stable of competitions seem to be SuperBand! Can't wait.

Undiscovered Gem - My Name Is Earl

So, whay else can I criticize?

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