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Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City
Tokyo is one of the most vibrant and livable cities on the planet, a megacity that somehow remains intimate and adaptive. Compared to Western metropolises like New York or Paris, however, few outsiders understand Tokyo's inner workings. 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?
Emergent Tokyo answers this question in the affirmative by delving into Tokyo's most distinctive urban spaces, from iconic neon nightlife to tranquil neighborhood backstreets. Tokyo at its best offers a new vision for a human-scale urban ecosystem, where ordinary residents can shape their own environment in ways large and small, and communities take on a life of their own beyond government master planning and corporate profit-seeking. 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.
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. Visitors to Japan, architects, and urban policy practitioners alike will come away with a fresh understanding of the world's premier megacity - and a practical guide for how to bring Tokyo-style intimacy, adaptability, and spontaneity to other cities around the world.
Emergent Tokyo answers this question in the affirmative by delving into Tokyo's most distinctive urban spaces, from iconic neon nightlife to tranquil neighborhood backstreets. Tokyo at its best offers a new vision for a human-scale urban ecosystem, where ordinary residents can shape their own environment in ways large and small, and communities take on a life of their own beyond government master planning and corporate profit-seeking. 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.
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. Visitors to Japan, architects, and urban policy practitioners alike will come away with a fresh understanding of the world's premier megacity - and a practical guide for how to bring Tokyo-style intimacy, adaptability, and spontaneity to other cities around the world.
250 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
September 23, 2025
Ya han pasado casi diez años desde mi primer viaje a Tokio y desde entonces la ciudad sigue deslumbrándome cada vez que la visito. Pasear sin rumbo por sus calles y distritos es uno de mis ‘guilty pleasures’ de esta vida.
Leer este libro ha sido una mezcla de nostalgia y sobre todo aprendizaje mientras bicheaba en Google Maps los edificios y barrios que se mencionan. La edición está muy cuidada y no miento si digo que es lo que me llevó a comprarlo para darle una oportunidad.
Creo que esta lectura es bastante de nicho, recomendado para arquitectos, urbanistas o frikis de la ciudad (como yo). Me ha encantado saber algo más de esta gigantesca urbe única en el mundo y me ha dejado con una gran curiosidad por saber cómo evolucionará de aquí a unos años.
Leer este libro ha sido una mezcla de nostalgia y sobre todo aprendizaje mientras bicheaba en Google Maps los edificios y barrios que se mencionan. La edición está muy cuidada y no miento si digo que es lo que me llevó a comprarlo para darle una oportunidad.
Creo que esta lectura es bastante de nicho, recomendado para arquitectos, urbanistas o frikis de la ciudad (como yo). Me ha encantado saber algo más de esta gigantesca urbe única en el mundo y me ha dejado con una gran curiosidad por saber cómo evolucionará de aquí a unos años.
June 30, 2022
A stupendously smart look at the highly dense yet highly liveable and human parts of Tokyo and exactly how they work. Accessible, clear, important – one of my books of the year.
October 13, 2022
Very interesting, and surprisingly readable, overview of a set of architectural patterns and neighborhood styles in Tokyo that emerged organically, rather than as a pure result of urban planning and purposeful effort. Being fairly well-acquainted with Tokyo, I found this fascinating, and the patterns they describe do contribute to some of my favorite areas: for example, the under-rail-track shops and bars of Koenji, and the low-rise, dense housing areas that cluster around many train stations. The alleys and unplanned common areas those give rise to result in a true "neighborhood" feel, unbroken by large car-oriented roads or high-rise apartments. The book gives terrific historical context for these developments, and by diving deeply into several examples of each pattern provides really interesting background of how they arose. Sprinkled with excellent diagrams and illustrations, the book is a fascinating analysis written in a readable way, without too much overly-academic dryness. Very enjoyable.
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July 3, 2024A fascinating read regarding the organic and inorganic development of certain aspects of Tokyo. Loved the diagrams included and thought the author’s thesis of lessons to be learned from the intentional and unintentional choices of the city’s design was well argued. The book explicitly outlines what is lost in corporate, profit-focused, “safe” design which I think many of us intuitively know and feel (esp. as we walk surrounded by sterile glass and concrete). There’s a certain flattening of the human experience which becomes more obvious when reading the contrasts Emergent Tokyo outlines
September 1, 2025
Mooie duiding van veel zaken die al opgevallen waren; de idiosyncrasies van Tokio worden hier toch mooi mee verklaard.
July 19, 2025
Of the many ideas that this book debunks, it does excellently what it sets out to do - debunk the idea of Japanese-ness/ national exceptionalism in urban planning, by unpacking the changes in streetscape over time and ownership, explaining why and how the streetscapes in Tokyo came to be. LOVE THIS BOOK. There should be one written of every city. Most impt takeaway for me is to acknowledge the messiness of public space; rather than thinking that public space is necessarily western centric and therefore not applicable in asian contexts, it is about distilling exactly what constitutes the messiness in the public spaces im familiar with. In doing so, i might end up with a completely different idea of public space from the western ideal (a space for social interaction) or i might find similar and/or disparate strands. Whatever the finding may be, both versions (western & non-western) of public space exist in their own right; they exist not as dichotomies but as nuances.
January 3, 2025
For fans of: Cute axonometric diagrams, megacity theory, and the bottom up process of shaping a city (down with corporate led urbanism).
March 8, 2025
This book wonderfully explained how Tokyo’s architectural idiosyncrasies largely came as a result of emergent, “bottom-up” development that occurred post-WW2. In the Tokyo of today, urban development is predominantly driven by corporations that rely on economies of scale for achieving profits. While these corporate-driven projects do offer safety benefits, they often reduce spontaneity in neighborhoods they’re built in and exacerbate social class divides.
TLDR: Emergent urbanism > Corporate-driven urbanism
TLDR: Emergent urbanism > Corporate-driven urbanism
July 15, 2024
A great book about urban design pitching top-down corporate design against dynamic emergent urban fabric. Totally accessible even as someone totally untrained in urban planning with simply an amateur interest in the subject. I can’t stop talking about this book to friends and family.
May 4, 2024
What an aesthetic book. Beautiful illustrations, nice layout (with string binding even)! And the book does a good job giving the reader the feel for the neighborhoods it describes, helping us visualize them and see why they are special.
But at many points it feels like aesthetics are all the book is concerned with. For example, it does not answer some pretty obvious questions in the chapter on under-track development. How do these developments deal with noise? How do under-highway developments deal with pollution? How is Tokyo able to build in these spaces when most cities can't? Are the answers technical, are Tokyo's trains quieter than New York's? Or are the answers regulatory, do other cities simply choose not to allow development under train tracks? I understand that this book isn't really a comparative study, but the author does promise "a practical program of action for the world's cities to learn from" (p.4). The author has convinced me under-track development is a good idea, but left me without some of the knowledge necessary to practically advocate for these kinds of spaces.
In a similar vein, the author bemoans 'corporate-led development' throughout the whole book. But many of his criticisms are aesthetic. He does not provide much evidence that these developments are less fiscally or environmentally sustainable, nor that they are bad places to live (other than elevator malfunctions during the 2011 earthquake). The author claims the buildings might fuel displacement (p.210) but again, doesn't really provide any empirical evidence this has happened.
Yet the book does provide many useful policy insights. It shows how Japan's permissive zoning allows individuals to create small businesses in residential neighborhoods, making the neighborhoods more vibrant and fostering intimate, distinctive bars, shops, and tiny restaurants. The book also describes some other land-use policies that cities around the world should adopt. These include the Transit Oriented Development on rail-road owned land near suburban stations (p.167) and the ways in which Zakyo buildings allow many independent businesses to exist on very expensive downtown land by stacking on-top of one another - sort of like a vertical strip mall (p.79)
The book also provides some interesting urban history. I particularly liked the first chapter on Yokocho alleyways, which made me think of the Barracas of Maputo; these low-status but intimate alley bars must have been what Yokocho felt like in the 1950s. The many history lessons in the book also backed up the author's arguments against essentializing Tokyo's urban form as an idiosyncratic result of Japanese culture. And the author practiced the nuance he preached, he discussed some of the less ideal elements of Tokyo, even the parts of Tokyo he loves the most (namely the lack of public space and precarious lack of preparation for natural disaster).
Ultimately, I enjoyed learning about Tokyo's built environment, and appreciated many of the author's aesthetic ideas, I just wish I knew a little more about what concrete policies other cities could do to foster similar spaces.
But at many points it feels like aesthetics are all the book is concerned with. For example, it does not answer some pretty obvious questions in the chapter on under-track development. How do these developments deal with noise? How do under-highway developments deal with pollution? How is Tokyo able to build in these spaces when most cities can't? Are the answers technical, are Tokyo's trains quieter than New York's? Or are the answers regulatory, do other cities simply choose not to allow development under train tracks? I understand that this book isn't really a comparative study, but the author does promise "a practical program of action for the world's cities to learn from" (p.4). The author has convinced me under-track development is a good idea, but left me without some of the knowledge necessary to practically advocate for these kinds of spaces.
In a similar vein, the author bemoans 'corporate-led development' throughout the whole book. But many of his criticisms are aesthetic. He does not provide much evidence that these developments are less fiscally or environmentally sustainable, nor that they are bad places to live (other than elevator malfunctions during the 2011 earthquake). The author claims the buildings might fuel displacement (p.210) but again, doesn't really provide any empirical evidence this has happened.
Yet the book does provide many useful policy insights. It shows how Japan's permissive zoning allows individuals to create small businesses in residential neighborhoods, making the neighborhoods more vibrant and fostering intimate, distinctive bars, shops, and tiny restaurants. The book also describes some other land-use policies that cities around the world should adopt. These include the Transit Oriented Development on rail-road owned land near suburban stations (p.167) and the ways in which Zakyo buildings allow many independent businesses to exist on very expensive downtown land by stacking on-top of one another - sort of like a vertical strip mall (p.79)
The book also provides some interesting urban history. I particularly liked the first chapter on Yokocho alleyways, which made me think of the Barracas of Maputo; these low-status but intimate alley bars must have been what Yokocho felt like in the 1950s. The many history lessons in the book also backed up the author's arguments against essentializing Tokyo's urban form as an idiosyncratic result of Japanese culture. And the author practiced the nuance he preached, he discussed some of the less ideal elements of Tokyo, even the parts of Tokyo he loves the most (namely the lack of public space and precarious lack of preparation for natural disaster).
Ultimately, I enjoyed learning about Tokyo's built environment, and appreciated many of the author's aesthetic ideas, I just wish I knew a little more about what concrete policies other cities could do to foster similar spaces.
August 16, 2025
I am visiting Japan as a tourist and this is a super interesting book, as it highlights main urban forms that are distinct to Tokyo. The selection of cases, the readability/accessibility, the detailed visualizations and the overview of architectural thinking on Tokyo are all amazing, earning this book a clear 5/5 stars.
In the following, I want to comment on some of the urban design policy discussions by the authors, which I found interesting but not entirely convincing for 3 main reasons.
First, the proposals are not very actionable. One of the main policy messages of the book is that Tokyo is at a crossroad between emergent forms of urban design (good) and corporate-led development (bad). The authors give many many examples in the book about the good type of urban design but basically all of them are historical examples of urban forms that emerged over long periods of time, making it very difficult for a modern city planner to implement anything. For example, the authors try to address this exact criticism but still give the example of Golden Gai, which was created in the 1950s, and it's very unclear that this form would be in line with any reasonable building/safety standards today (the authors do seem to argue that such standards should only be flexibly applied, but this also doesn't sound very implementable for new urban structures).
Second, I think the authors underestimate the negative effects of local Nimbyism (which isn't discussed at all). By not discussing the potentially negative effects that local communities can play in blocking dense urban development, a seeming take-away from the book is to always just hand urban development to local interest groups and communities (with many positive examples given) instead of to large corporate developers. In contrast, Tokyo seems globally remarkable in it's ability to manage high density with urban charm and after finishing the book, I am not sure I completely understand how it has been able to create this density.
Third, I am not sure I fully buy the criticism of large scale corporate developers. The critique of the Mori Building Company's vision of Tokyo as a vertical garden city is spot-on and convincing (p. 208). But then the authors also write that emergent/adaptive forms of urban development are never in the interest of big developers (p. 215). This isn't very clear to me. Larger developers will have an economic incentive to price in any externalities that smaller developers of individual plots will not generally have. There is good evidence from London's great estates, that concentrated ownership is important, and it would be interesting to see how the authors square this evidence with their arguments for dispersed ownership. I would also find it more fruitful to rather focus on why big corporate developers find it more profitable to cater mostly to affluent business people or are unwilling to take risks with emergent urban forms rather than creating the diversity that the authors would like to see and then see how political decisions could change these incentives. Relatedly, there is also a real danger of favoring smaller developers that can lead to cost increases (an issue that featured prominently in California's high speed rail development and should not be underestimated).
At the end, one very actionable take away from the book is however clear: simply involve more creative and modern Japanese urban planning, design and architecture bureaus in the city planning processes. This seems to be an easy point everyone should agree with who read the book.
In the following, I want to comment on some of the urban design policy discussions by the authors, which I found interesting but not entirely convincing for 3 main reasons.
First, the proposals are not very actionable. One of the main policy messages of the book is that Tokyo is at a crossroad between emergent forms of urban design (good) and corporate-led development (bad). The authors give many many examples in the book about the good type of urban design but basically all of them are historical examples of urban forms that emerged over long periods of time, making it very difficult for a modern city planner to implement anything. For example, the authors try to address this exact criticism but still give the example of Golden Gai, which was created in the 1950s, and it's very unclear that this form would be in line with any reasonable building/safety standards today (the authors do seem to argue that such standards should only be flexibly applied, but this also doesn't sound very implementable for new urban structures).
Second, I think the authors underestimate the negative effects of local Nimbyism (which isn't discussed at all). By not discussing the potentially negative effects that local communities can play in blocking dense urban development, a seeming take-away from the book is to always just hand urban development to local interest groups and communities (with many positive examples given) instead of to large corporate developers. In contrast, Tokyo seems globally remarkable in it's ability to manage high density with urban charm and after finishing the book, I am not sure I completely understand how it has been able to create this density.
Third, I am not sure I fully buy the criticism of large scale corporate developers. The critique of the Mori Building Company's vision of Tokyo as a vertical garden city is spot-on and convincing (p. 208). But then the authors also write that emergent/adaptive forms of urban development are never in the interest of big developers (p. 215). This isn't very clear to me. Larger developers will have an economic incentive to price in any externalities that smaller developers of individual plots will not generally have. There is good evidence from London's great estates, that concentrated ownership is important, and it would be interesting to see how the authors square this evidence with their arguments for dispersed ownership. I would also find it more fruitful to rather focus on why big corporate developers find it more profitable to cater mostly to affluent business people or are unwilling to take risks with emergent urban forms rather than creating the diversity that the authors would like to see and then see how political decisions could change these incentives. Relatedly, there is also a real danger of favoring smaller developers that can lead to cost increases (an issue that featured prominently in California's high speed rail development and should not be underestimated).
At the end, one very actionable take away from the book is however clear: simply involve more creative and modern Japanese urban planning, design and architecture bureaus in the city planning processes. This seems to be an easy point everyone should agree with who read the book.
March 3, 2023
The authors have broken up the city of Tokyo into six major categories, Village, Local, Pocket, Mercantile, Yamanote Mercantile and Shitamachi Mercantile. 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.
It is interesting to see the evolution of the many districts and how they have morphed into their various, current states. We get some historical background and political motivations without getting overwhelmed with the details, which allows us some clearer perspective.
We find a tale of problems encountered, opportunities taken and lessons learned. We also see the vast differences between corporate-led Tokyo and Emergent Tokyo and how they each play out and their influence on the people and places around them.
So this is a decent account of one of the most fascinating and bustling metropolises on the planet. I thought some of the layout was a tad shoddy in places, but overall this largely succeeds in what it sets out to do and I certainly learned a thing or two along the way too.
It is interesting to see the evolution of the many districts and how they have morphed into their various, current states. We get some historical background and political motivations without getting overwhelmed with the details, which allows us some clearer perspective.
We find a tale of problems encountered, opportunities taken and lessons learned. We also see the vast differences between corporate-led Tokyo and Emergent Tokyo and how they each play out and their influence on the people and places around them.
So this is a decent account of one of the most fascinating and bustling metropolises on the planet. I thought some of the layout was a tad shoddy in places, but overall this largely succeeds in what it sets out to do and I certainly learned a thing or two along the way too.
June 27, 2023
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.
Really great analysis, with a lot of ideas and suggestions that anybody can advocate for in their own cities.
Really great analysis, with a lot of ideas and suggestions that anybody can advocate for in their own cities.
April 13, 2024
Such an insightful and intriguing read. I had visited Tokyo before reading, and recently returned. I was able to see the city in a whole new light, and patterns of development that seemed inexplicable before suddenly made sense!
I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in urban planning, tokyo, or both.
I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in urban planning, tokyo, or both.
May 14, 2024
The best book of this kind I have read. It explained many things I had long wondered about and opened my eyes to many others. The explanations and figures were perfectly made to give a real feel for places I had visited many times over the years and to make me excited to see others for the first time. Lots of lessons for other cities to try out as well.
March 9, 2023
Graphically stunning and full of patterns and observations on the city. However, its hand-wavy pro-regulation, anti-capital stance irked me quite a bit. For a book championing “emergence”, it really doesn’t like growth-oriented strategies. A shame to be full of so much contradiction.
October 1, 2025
An incredible amount of research was done for this book. Very interesting topic with great diagrams and photos.
November 24, 2024
Interesting book but not as graphically oriented as I would have liked
November 15, 2022
I really loved this book! I work as an urban planner at a downtown development authority, and this book has many practical insights. I found it very helpful how Almazan traced various elements of Tokyo’s urban environment back to their origins and showed how they evolved over time. I’m already a believer in small-scale, bottom-up urbanism, but I still appreciated learning how these qualities have contributed to and enriched many Tokyo neighborhoods.
I loved the graphics as well. Almazan uses many creative maps/diagrams to illustrate concepts and change over time. The graphics provide great inspiration for reports/presentations/etc!
I loved the graphics as well. Almazan uses many creative maps/diagrams to illustrate concepts and change over time. The graphics provide great inspiration for reports/presentations/etc!
September 27, 2024
An architectural deep dive that remains readable with great graphics to make the most salient points clearly. Ends with a hopeful message of how urbanism of the future could be guided by the best of what makes Tokyo special.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2025
Excellent read - not just as a study of Tokyo, but also for its broader distilled insights into modern planning. The book clearly and thoughtfully draws out the aspects of Tokyo’s built environment that are so appealing to visitors - I found so much of the language to describe what I felt, but could not articulate, in my visit there. Yet it also manages to avoid - and outright critique - the orientalist lens of attributing Tokyo’s uniqueness to some abstract quality of Japan. The last chapter does a fantastic job of drawing everything together, emphasizing the importance of emergent design and planning (economies and places of agglomeration) in a moment dominated by oligarchic corporate urbanity.
Great read, whether or not you’ve visited Tokyo!
Great read, whether or not you’ve visited Tokyo!
August 22, 2025
5/5 — super fun and interesting
short review; key learnings from an org level:
1. policy and language dictates and shapes design
2. embrace intimacy and permeability
3. small + low profile is Okay — as long as small is Adaptable and Transformative; small encourages informality and connection!
4. bottom-up, not top-down development and decision making (exceptions: "common goods" and/or "common spaces" that are sure to have strong public benefits)
5. foster experimentation and innovation thru Trust and "de-control" — the goal is "agglomeration" (diverse, competing, complementary, eclectic) rather than "scale" (standard growth of A Thing)
6. always leave room for communal engagement
7. build and design with Access in mind — it's Okay sometimes to plot your spaces near a train or impose a general grid
8. location is Still Everything — train access, residential access, etc.
9. mixed-use spaces help and are a more efficient means of organizing resources rather than classic Le Corbusier-style "neat separations"
personal summation — What are the tenets of Emergent Design?
1. "never complete", reflexive, fluid
2. adaptive to surroundings and needs of habitat/communities/stakeholders (people, non-people)
3. intimate, small, informal
4. "bottom-up" — ground-level individuals shaping collective
5. open, Accessible (see proximity of "emergent spaces" to train/metro lines), permeable, and interactive
6. multi-use/mixed-use
7. broadly organized thru a general principle of "agglomeration"
aka "compassionate design systems that balance shared control of commons with intimate, easy, scalable personal spaces/accountabilities"
---
long review:
short but dense; don't really know why i classified this as "casual" when it took a heavy amount of close-reading to get through. so hard to really "process" everything i feel and want to feel about this book. biased because i think i viewed this book thru the lens of all the many different spaces i've been thru in tokyo, and also in many daily life and encounters, and how it...pokes and prods at the kind of spaces i enjoy the most and whether or not it makes me a bad person "conditioned by the system" to also ultimately gravitate more towards spaces corporatized and predictable, when life is not and even if that's not what i ultimately seek.
what makes an "emergent" city and/or an "emergent" design is this lack of top-down control — systems and spaces that are inherently participatory, "adaptable", "transformable", "permeable", and "inexpensive." the authors' and researchers' are deliberate in hammering down this notion repeatedly by focusing on spaces that most would deem disorderly, mundane, crowded, and even crass — bar alleys, musty multi-story business buildings, narrow "in-between" residential alleys, underfills of train tracks and highways. its beauty isnt from any particular inherent "neatness" or "grid"-ness but rather the open-faced, spontaneous interactions it inspires in those who step in and around the space. everything feels so "small" and therefore "manageable" and thereby "friendlier." there is room for expression. there is limited (but firm!) control based on a general premise of "non-control". it works and is relatively cheap to implement monetarily. it is also very scary however because unlike many "common" design trends now, it implies a need to both trust and "give up" space and consumption desires and lofty growth ambitions to be successful. it means relinquishing some control and an openness to change which many of us are not.
that said though — aren't things always changing regardless? as almazan argues, much of tokyo is a summation of many drastic, violent changes. the great kanto earthquake in 1923. world war II. the postwar economic boom of the 1970s and 1980s. the asian financial crisis and subsequent tourism boom. what we see as precious and orderly is mostly clouded by our limited lifespans on this earth. spaces often outlive and outgrow us. why should we be so obssessed with appearances when we can better think about its utility for generations to come? abandoned space after all is wasted space.
i find myself thinking of this idea of "liminal spaces" and how scary they are, and how not scary they'd be if we'd treat them with the same "emergent" eye that this book treats its six flagship spaces — no longer "abandoned" but "flexible", easy to share, easy to reinvent, inviting, full of limitless, restless potential thru which strangers become neighbors and small pots of plants can grow and grow.
if there is such a thing as an economics of intimacy and "agglomeration" (a favorite term) to counter the economies of scale we're often taught as the most sustainable model of resource, business, enterprise development — i hope and want to be part of it!
---
p.s and/or for future reading/additional thoughts:
emergent design Works when built atop strong foundations i.e. good to build first some trains.
on a personal note, maybe good also read up more on lacaton + vassal and other relatively more non-interventionist and/or citizen-led urban planning case studies and theories before making more sweeping poetic declarations.
also, also TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT!!!
short review; key learnings from an org level:
1. policy and language dictates and shapes design
2. embrace intimacy and permeability
3. small + low profile is Okay — as long as small is Adaptable and Transformative; small encourages informality and connection!
4. bottom-up, not top-down development and decision making (exceptions: "common goods" and/or "common spaces" that are sure to have strong public benefits)
5. foster experimentation and innovation thru Trust and "de-control" — the goal is "agglomeration" (diverse, competing, complementary, eclectic) rather than "scale" (standard growth of A Thing)
6. always leave room for communal engagement
7. build and design with Access in mind — it's Okay sometimes to plot your spaces near a train or impose a general grid
8. location is Still Everything — train access, residential access, etc.
9. mixed-use spaces help and are a more efficient means of organizing resources rather than classic Le Corbusier-style "neat separations"
personal summation — What are the tenets of Emergent Design?
1. "never complete", reflexive, fluid
2. adaptive to surroundings and needs of habitat/communities/stakeholders (people, non-people)
3. intimate, small, informal
4. "bottom-up" — ground-level individuals shaping collective
5. open, Accessible (see proximity of "emergent spaces" to train/metro lines), permeable, and interactive
6. multi-use/mixed-use
7. broadly organized thru a general principle of "agglomeration"
aka "compassionate design systems that balance shared control of commons with intimate, easy, scalable personal spaces/accountabilities"
---
long review:
short but dense; don't really know why i classified this as "casual" when it took a heavy amount of close-reading to get through. so hard to really "process" everything i feel and want to feel about this book. biased because i think i viewed this book thru the lens of all the many different spaces i've been thru in tokyo, and also in many daily life and encounters, and how it...pokes and prods at the kind of spaces i enjoy the most and whether or not it makes me a bad person "conditioned by the system" to also ultimately gravitate more towards spaces corporatized and predictable, when life is not and even if that's not what i ultimately seek.
what makes an "emergent" city and/or an "emergent" design is this lack of top-down control — systems and spaces that are inherently participatory, "adaptable", "transformable", "permeable", and "inexpensive." the authors' and researchers' are deliberate in hammering down this notion repeatedly by focusing on spaces that most would deem disorderly, mundane, crowded, and even crass — bar alleys, musty multi-story business buildings, narrow "in-between" residential alleys, underfills of train tracks and highways. its beauty isnt from any particular inherent "neatness" or "grid"-ness but rather the open-faced, spontaneous interactions it inspires in those who step in and around the space. everything feels so "small" and therefore "manageable" and thereby "friendlier." there is room for expression. there is limited (but firm!) control based on a general premise of "non-control". it works and is relatively cheap to implement monetarily. it is also very scary however because unlike many "common" design trends now, it implies a need to both trust and "give up" space and consumption desires and lofty growth ambitions to be successful. it means relinquishing some control and an openness to change which many of us are not.
that said though — aren't things always changing regardless? as almazan argues, much of tokyo is a summation of many drastic, violent changes. the great kanto earthquake in 1923. world war II. the postwar economic boom of the 1970s and 1980s. the asian financial crisis and subsequent tourism boom. what we see as precious and orderly is mostly clouded by our limited lifespans on this earth. spaces often outlive and outgrow us. why should we be so obssessed with appearances when we can better think about its utility for generations to come? abandoned space after all is wasted space.
i find myself thinking of this idea of "liminal spaces" and how scary they are, and how not scary they'd be if we'd treat them with the same "emergent" eye that this book treats its six flagship spaces — no longer "abandoned" but "flexible", easy to share, easy to reinvent, inviting, full of limitless, restless potential thru which strangers become neighbors and small pots of plants can grow and grow.
if there is such a thing as an economics of intimacy and "agglomeration" (a favorite term) to counter the economies of scale we're often taught as the most sustainable model of resource, business, enterprise development — i hope and want to be part of it!
---
p.s and/or for future reading/additional thoughts:
emergent design Works when built atop strong foundations i.e. good to build first some trains.
on a personal note, maybe good also read up more on lacaton + vassal and other relatively more non-interventionist and/or citizen-led urban planning case studies and theories before making more sweeping poetic declarations.
also, also TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT!!!
December 14, 2023
Emergent Tokyo seeks to unpack the conditions - the interplay between buildings, infrastructure, local culture and practices, legal codes and ground up responses to these conditions - that led to Tokyo's unique cityscape. In doing so, it seeks to counter the myths and cliches surrounding Tokyo's development - that it is somehow the "inevitable result of Japanese culture", or that Tokyo is uniquely chaotic unlike its more orderly Western counterparts. There is nothing "inevitable" about Tokyo's character; although it has been remarkably resilient, with its social fabric, sense of place and character surviving generations of natural disasters, political upheaval, and economic transformation, it is not indestructible nor immune to threats. And in unpacking the conditions of Tokyo's development, Emergent Tokyo seeks to offer an alternative to the "corporate led urbanism" which we see in so many megacities (including in Marunouchi and Roppongi in Tokyo today), so that others can "design Tokyo-esque adaptability and spontaneity" into their cities.
Emergent Tokyo explores the city's conditions of development by examining 5 Tokyo patterns: yokocho alleyways; multi-tenant zakkyo buildings; undertrack infills; ankyo streets; dense low-rise neighbourhoods. For each pattern, Emergent Tokyo examines 2-3 examples, deep diving into their development.
For yokocho alleyways, the warren of narrow streets with small bars and restaurants, Emergent Tokyo zooms into Shinjuku's Golden Gai, Shibuya's Nombei Yokocho and Nishi Ogikubo's Yanagi Koji, which sits in the suburbs along the Chuo Line. Emergent Tokyo notes that yokocho had their beginnings as temporary black markets that emerged in the post war period, which gradually transformed to bars for snacks and drinks from the late 1940s. The Stall Clean Up Order of 1949 did not eliminate these bars but sought to regularise them, by relocating them to nearby areas. Yokochos have a unique management structure - each lot is owned by an individual proprietor and the alleys are not public land but shared private property among all the landowners and maintained by them. (In the case of Nombei Yokocho, the land is by the association and each store owner owns only the building and the right to run their business.) The small footprint of each establishment lowers start up costs and risks, allowing them to serve as incubators for young restauranteurs. The small scale also allows owners to create niche offerings, allowing for diversity. Golden Gai landowners have faced pressures from developers to sell up so that the plots can be consolidated but in 1986, some bar owners banded together to protect their interests. This group also works to improve the collectively owned infrastructure in the area.
Zakkyo (meaning "vertical miscellany") buildings, the multi-storey , multi-tenant buildings containing a mixture of offices, and a range of consumer establishments, their facades plastered with neon signs, are the polar opposite of large department stores and office towers. The latter required developers with "the patience and capital to acquire and merge multiple plots over the years or even decades". By contrast, zakkyo buildings are often pencil thin buildings sitting on narrow plots. These came about as a result of regulations on building heights and access to natural heights (which shaped the form), and ground up processes where different commercial enterprises moved into the buildings and placed commercial signages on the staircases and elevators to advertise their offerings. The next generation of zakkyo buildings built on this foundation, with wider entrance lobbies, panoramic elevators and more orderly displays of advertisements. Emergent Tokyo zooms into the zakkyo of Yasukuni Ave, near Shinjuku Station, Kagurazaka Street in Shinjuku Ward, and the Karasumori zakkyo block in Shimbashi.
The authors contrast zakkyo buildings with other buildings like shopping malls; while both draw the public into vertical spaces, shopping centres "do it by routing pedestrian flows internally in ways that decrease the pedestrian density of their surrounding environs and walling themselves off from the public view [while]….zakkyo buildings achieve their vertical density by opening directly onto the street…when they cluster together they not only preserve pedestrian laneways but strengthen their central, connective role in public life". Like yokocho alleyways, the authors argue that zakkyo buildings offer a prime urban location for relatively small establishments. One will see independent and smaller businesses in zakkyo buildings even in fairly central locations, as opposed to franchises and chain stores.
On undertrack infills, these sprang up under the elevated sections of railway tracks, raised up to avoid competing with vehicular traffic at crossings under the national policy of "grade separation". 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. Subsequently, those built in the 1960s and 1970s were built with the commercial use of undertrack space explicitly in mind. While viaducts can disrupt the urban fabric, in Tokyo, undertrack infills have helped to stitch together the urban fabric. But HOW the undertrack infills are designed have a profound impact on the urban fabric; undertrack spaces designed as windowless, inward-facing shopping malls deactivate the street while those that face outward and have independent shops add life to the street. Emergent Tokyo features three undertrack infill sites: Ameyoko Shotengai under the elevated JR lines between Ueno and Okachimachi Stations, the undertrack infills at Koenji Station on the Chuo Line and the Ginza Corridor, a 12m deep and 420m long undertrack area in the Ginza district.
On ankyo ("dark canal") streets, former watercourses that have been covered over and turned into paths and roads, Emergent Tokyo examines them as communal spaces of calm in a busy, sometimes frenetic, metropolis. Given that many ankyo are narrow, they tend not to have much vehicular traffic. 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.
Finally, on dense, low-rise neighbourhoods, the authors highlight that notwithstanding the stereotypical image of Tokyo as this neon-lit metropolis of ultra-modern buildings, the city is actually home to numerous intimate, highly-communal residential neighbourhoods. In particular, they examine the suburban neighbourhood of Higashi-Nakanobu in Shinagawa Ward, the historically planned district of Tsukishima in Chuo Ward and the north end of Shirokane.
Overall, it was fascinating learning about Tokyo's urban development context - how Japan's system of strong property rights has made it challenging for real estate developers to do large scale redevelopment; it was only with the 2002 Law on Special Measures for Urban Renaissance, which designated specific areas of the city as special zones where existing urban regulations were suspended, that developers could negotiate case-by-case deals with local government officials to redevelop these parts of the city. The authors note that this was something "the old system never would have permitted".
Emergent Tokyo argues that the regulatory system in place that allows for small, fragmented ownership, rather than privileging large developers, has created the conditions for diversity, resilience and community. For instance, "the system [in yokochos] allows owners and managers to customise their spaces, invest in them as a long term project, and get involved in decision-making affecting the yokocho as a whole. This emphasis on smallness and fragmented egalitarian ownership has fostered an emergent sense of community and shared responsibility." 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.
Emergent Tokyo is a lovingly researched book with gorgeous, detailed visuals - maps showing how land use and plot sizes evolved over the years, building cross-sections to show building use and its evolution over time, photographs. Whether you are someone who is interested in urban design, or you just love visiting Tokyo, this book has something for you. I borrowed Emergent Tokyo from the library but really wanted to buy the book and a plane ticket to Tokyo to visit all the places that the book examines.
4.5 stars.
Emergent Tokyo explores the city's conditions of development by examining 5 Tokyo patterns: yokocho alleyways; multi-tenant zakkyo buildings; undertrack infills; ankyo streets; dense low-rise neighbourhoods. For each pattern, Emergent Tokyo examines 2-3 examples, deep diving into their development.
For yokocho alleyways, the warren of narrow streets with small bars and restaurants, Emergent Tokyo zooms into Shinjuku's Golden Gai, Shibuya's Nombei Yokocho and Nishi Ogikubo's Yanagi Koji, which sits in the suburbs along the Chuo Line. Emergent Tokyo notes that yokocho had their beginnings as temporary black markets that emerged in the post war period, which gradually transformed to bars for snacks and drinks from the late 1940s. The Stall Clean Up Order of 1949 did not eliminate these bars but sought to regularise them, by relocating them to nearby areas. Yokochos have a unique management structure - each lot is owned by an individual proprietor and the alleys are not public land but shared private property among all the landowners and maintained by them. (In the case of Nombei Yokocho, the land is by the association and each store owner owns only the building and the right to run their business.) The small footprint of each establishment lowers start up costs and risks, allowing them to serve as incubators for young restauranteurs. The small scale also allows owners to create niche offerings, allowing for diversity. Golden Gai landowners have faced pressures from developers to sell up so that the plots can be consolidated but in 1986, some bar owners banded together to protect their interests. This group also works to improve the collectively owned infrastructure in the area.
Zakkyo (meaning "vertical miscellany") buildings, the multi-storey , multi-tenant buildings containing a mixture of offices, and a range of consumer establishments, their facades plastered with neon signs, are the polar opposite of large department stores and office towers. The latter required developers with "the patience and capital to acquire and merge multiple plots over the years or even decades". By contrast, zakkyo buildings are often pencil thin buildings sitting on narrow plots. These came about as a result of regulations on building heights and access to natural heights (which shaped the form), and ground up processes where different commercial enterprises moved into the buildings and placed commercial signages on the staircases and elevators to advertise their offerings. The next generation of zakkyo buildings built on this foundation, with wider entrance lobbies, panoramic elevators and more orderly displays of advertisements. Emergent Tokyo zooms into the zakkyo of Yasukuni Ave, near Shinjuku Station, Kagurazaka Street in Shinjuku Ward, and the Karasumori zakkyo block in Shimbashi.
The authors contrast zakkyo buildings with other buildings like shopping malls; while both draw the public into vertical spaces, shopping centres "do it by routing pedestrian flows internally in ways that decrease the pedestrian density of their surrounding environs and walling themselves off from the public view [while]….zakkyo buildings achieve their vertical density by opening directly onto the street…when they cluster together they not only preserve pedestrian laneways but strengthen their central, connective role in public life". Like yokocho alleyways, the authors argue that zakkyo buildings offer a prime urban location for relatively small establishments. One will see independent and smaller businesses in zakkyo buildings even in fairly central locations, as opposed to franchises and chain stores.
On undertrack infills, these sprang up under the elevated sections of railway tracks, raised up to avoid competing with vehicular traffic at crossings under the national policy of "grade separation". 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. Subsequently, those built in the 1960s and 1970s were built with the commercial use of undertrack space explicitly in mind. While viaducts can disrupt the urban fabric, in Tokyo, undertrack infills have helped to stitch together the urban fabric. But HOW the undertrack infills are designed have a profound impact on the urban fabric; undertrack spaces designed as windowless, inward-facing shopping malls deactivate the street while those that face outward and have independent shops add life to the street. Emergent Tokyo features three undertrack infill sites: Ameyoko Shotengai under the elevated JR lines between Ueno and Okachimachi Stations, the undertrack infills at Koenji Station on the Chuo Line and the Ginza Corridor, a 12m deep and 420m long undertrack area in the Ginza district.
On ankyo ("dark canal") streets, former watercourses that have been covered over and turned into paths and roads, Emergent Tokyo examines them as communal spaces of calm in a busy, sometimes frenetic, metropolis. Given that many ankyo are narrow, they tend not to have much vehicular traffic. 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.
Finally, on dense, low-rise neighbourhoods, the authors highlight that notwithstanding the stereotypical image of Tokyo as this neon-lit metropolis of ultra-modern buildings, the city is actually home to numerous intimate, highly-communal residential neighbourhoods. In particular, they examine the suburban neighbourhood of Higashi-Nakanobu in Shinagawa Ward, the historically planned district of Tsukishima in Chuo Ward and the north end of Shirokane.
Overall, it was fascinating learning about Tokyo's urban development context - how Japan's system of strong property rights has made it challenging for real estate developers to do large scale redevelopment; it was only with the 2002 Law on Special Measures for Urban Renaissance, which designated specific areas of the city as special zones where existing urban regulations were suspended, that developers could negotiate case-by-case deals with local government officials to redevelop these parts of the city. The authors note that this was something "the old system never would have permitted".
Emergent Tokyo argues that the regulatory system in place that allows for small, fragmented ownership, rather than privileging large developers, has created the conditions for diversity, resilience and community. For instance, "the system [in yokochos] allows owners and managers to customise their spaces, invest in them as a long term project, and get involved in decision-making affecting the yokocho as a whole. This emphasis on smallness and fragmented egalitarian ownership has fostered an emergent sense of community and shared responsibility." 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.
Emergent Tokyo is a lovingly researched book with gorgeous, detailed visuals - maps showing how land use and plot sizes evolved over the years, building cross-sections to show building use and its evolution over time, photographs. Whether you are someone who is interested in urban design, or you just love visiting Tokyo, this book has something for you. I borrowed Emergent Tokyo from the library but really wanted to buy the book and a plane ticket to Tokyo to visit all the places that the book examines.
4.5 stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 5, 2025
What a fantastic read. I always wondered why Tokyo is the way it is, a mix of some towering skyscrapers and many, many more low level blocks. This book answer those questions.
The main bulk of the book looks at various types of urban configuration that allows Tokyo the crazy and wonderful amount of diversity that is I think part of its character. Reading about it while being in the city is an additional treat - so much of what the authors wrote I could appreciate, having been to half of the places mentioned. I think that that is also key to enjoying the book - though the beautiful pictures and illustrations means that even if one has not been there prior, one is still able to appreciate the points being made. As a result of this book, I understand how zakkyo, ankyo and yokocho came about. Much of the landscape now is brace of the war, since pre-war Tokyo was pretty much devastated so there was a clean slate from which to start from.
Which brings me to the penultimate chapters, where the book tries to dispel the notion of Tokyo being unique for being Japanese. Rather much deliberate planning is involved, though allowance was also given for ground-up initiatives, such as the black-marketeers that clustered around the railway stations in the aftermath of the war, which were later then moved to sites that the government designated (the Golden Gai for example). This is important as this approach avoids the orientalising of Tokyo as “uniquely Japanese” by both foreign observers and locals alike. There is much to be learnt from Tokyo that can be applied with some contextualisation to other cities.
The last chapter, is I think the most important, insofar as the t authors covered what are the dominant forces that will and are reshaping Tokyo’s urban environment, and not for the better. Citing the examples of Roppongi Hills and Midtown (and I will add Azabudai Hills to this list), Tokyo is being redeveloped in particular areas (mainly in the central region, around the imperial palace), in ways that are antithetical to the very elements that make Tokyo, Tokyo. The community and resident-centredness of the yokocho, ankyo, Zakkyo and low-rise residential neighbourhoods are the exact opposite of those earlier mentioned developments, which prioritise exclusiveness and caters to the elite, making them vertical gated communities. They have no ties to the surrounding region, being virtually islands on their own amidst the sea that is the rest of Tokyo. The blandness and sameness of these areas are reminiscent of the kind of urban structures one will find in other major cities around the world. Focusing on enabling the flow of global capital, these spaces are void of anything resembling community. As someone from such a global city (Singapore) and been to other global cities (Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong), I absolutely can see this as a valid criticism.
I think it’s incredibly important that Tokyo does not go the way of these cities. Aside from the fact that such major, capital-centred developments are an eyesore and changes the character of the city, it is their lack of focus on the people who live and work there (unlike the urban environments covered in the book) that is the more troubling aspect, as they will eventually hollow out that which makes Tokyo what it is.
This book will be one in which one will come back to consistently to refer to. The relatively thinness of the book (about 200 plus pages) belies the amount of information packed into it. If you want to know Tokyo beyond the glitz and its stereotype as an “urban hell”, beyond the surface level treatment that many seem to take with it, this is the book for you.
The main bulk of the book looks at various types of urban configuration that allows Tokyo the crazy and wonderful amount of diversity that is I think part of its character. Reading about it while being in the city is an additional treat - so much of what the authors wrote I could appreciate, having been to half of the places mentioned. I think that that is also key to enjoying the book - though the beautiful pictures and illustrations means that even if one has not been there prior, one is still able to appreciate the points being made. As a result of this book, I understand how zakkyo, ankyo and yokocho came about. Much of the landscape now is brace of the war, since pre-war Tokyo was pretty much devastated so there was a clean slate from which to start from.
Which brings me to the penultimate chapters, where the book tries to dispel the notion of Tokyo being unique for being Japanese. Rather much deliberate planning is involved, though allowance was also given for ground-up initiatives, such as the black-marketeers that clustered around the railway stations in the aftermath of the war, which were later then moved to sites that the government designated (the Golden Gai for example). This is important as this approach avoids the orientalising of Tokyo as “uniquely Japanese” by both foreign observers and locals alike. There is much to be learnt from Tokyo that can be applied with some contextualisation to other cities.
The last chapter, is I think the most important, insofar as the t authors covered what are the dominant forces that will and are reshaping Tokyo’s urban environment, and not for the better. Citing the examples of Roppongi Hills and Midtown (and I will add Azabudai Hills to this list), Tokyo is being redeveloped in particular areas (mainly in the central region, around the imperial palace), in ways that are antithetical to the very elements that make Tokyo, Tokyo. The community and resident-centredness of the yokocho, ankyo, Zakkyo and low-rise residential neighbourhoods are the exact opposite of those earlier mentioned developments, which prioritise exclusiveness and caters to the elite, making them vertical gated communities. They have no ties to the surrounding region, being virtually islands on their own amidst the sea that is the rest of Tokyo. The blandness and sameness of these areas are reminiscent of the kind of urban structures one will find in other major cities around the world. Focusing on enabling the flow of global capital, these spaces are void of anything resembling community. As someone from such a global city (Singapore) and been to other global cities (Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong), I absolutely can see this as a valid criticism.
I think it’s incredibly important that Tokyo does not go the way of these cities. Aside from the fact that such major, capital-centred developments are an eyesore and changes the character of the city, it is their lack of focus on the people who live and work there (unlike the urban environments covered in the book) that is the more troubling aspect, as they will eventually hollow out that which makes Tokyo what it is.
This book will be one in which one will come back to consistently to refer to. The relatively thinness of the book (about 200 plus pages) belies the amount of information packed into it. If you want to know Tokyo beyond the glitz and its stereotype as an “urban hell”, beyond the surface level treatment that many seem to take with it, this is the book for you.
September 21, 2025
I'm not so sure of the writing style of this book: it often repeated things I thought were obvious when explained once and then didn't do a good job of communicating its main points of why it was presenting certain information until the end of a chapter. But I loved the diagrams even if the book didn't always make clear what I am supposed to draw from them beyond the written word. At the very least, they are colorful and fun to look at.
As for the content, this book argues that the vibrancy of Tokyo comes from emergent neighborhoods rather than fully centrally planned ones. Some key points appear to be:
-Give structure to facillitate emergence, but don't prescribe what goes into every plot of land. For example, small parcels of land with owners or tenants aggregating resources facillitate small businesses by having low rent costs.
-Fluidity of boundaries with outside the neighborhood, and easy access to outside buildings create a melting pot that gives a neighborhood its vibrancy. In contrast, malls also have small parcels of land, but are very insular, and are often very planned with some flagship brands. This makes malls initially attractive but inorganic and often catering to only the wealthy.
And once the focus of the neighborhood shifts away from the mall's vision the mall slowly dies. In contrast a mosaic of informally aggregated small businesses can turnover or quickly pivot, so while the specific faces may change the neighborhood remains relevant.
-Allowance of billboards and signage allow for non ground floor shops to still catch attention of shoppers without the need of an insular shopping area, creating walkable density despite the small shops.
-Spaces with no formal usage are not necessarily wasted space if property owners have freedom to transform it for their own usage, e.g., to green spaces, walkways, etc. In contrast, zoning laws with required open spaces often check boxes rather than morphing to serve needs of the community.
-Unsuprisingly, transit-oriented planning leads to more walkable cities.
-Having buildings open up to pedestrian friendly streets not only improves traffic to the businesses and create shopping hotspots, but also helps create safety by having even dark, narrow alleys have frequent foot traffic.
While the book uses Tokyo as an example to learn from, it stresses freqeuntly that having a city with these traits is not unique to Tokyo or Japan.
I did learn some idiosyncrancies more specific to Tokyo and Japan:
-Lack of public sitting areas is to disincentivize congregation that would impede walking traffic flows.
-Japan's supposed conformity to social norms did not crystallize until fairly recently.
-Tokyo alternates high rises with low rises because high rises are generally newer and can therefore be built under stricter fire codes, creating fire breaks.
Well, all the above I think the book presents enough evidence and connects the dots enough to be plausible, but not necessarily strong evidence. But it is still quite interesting to think about, of how the not strictly planned urban design could have happened.
As for the content, this book argues that the vibrancy of Tokyo comes from emergent neighborhoods rather than fully centrally planned ones. Some key points appear to be:
-Give structure to facillitate emergence, but don't prescribe what goes into every plot of land. For example, small parcels of land with owners or tenants aggregating resources facillitate small businesses by having low rent costs.
-Fluidity of boundaries with outside the neighborhood, and easy access to outside buildings create a melting pot that gives a neighborhood its vibrancy. In contrast, malls also have small parcels of land, but are very insular, and are often very planned with some flagship brands. This makes malls initially attractive but inorganic and often catering to only the wealthy.
And once the focus of the neighborhood shifts away from the mall's vision the mall slowly dies. In contrast a mosaic of informally aggregated small businesses can turnover or quickly pivot, so while the specific faces may change the neighborhood remains relevant.
-Allowance of billboards and signage allow for non ground floor shops to still catch attention of shoppers without the need of an insular shopping area, creating walkable density despite the small shops.
-Spaces with no formal usage are not necessarily wasted space if property owners have freedom to transform it for their own usage, e.g., to green spaces, walkways, etc. In contrast, zoning laws with required open spaces often check boxes rather than morphing to serve needs of the community.
-Unsuprisingly, transit-oriented planning leads to more walkable cities.
-Having buildings open up to pedestrian friendly streets not only improves traffic to the businesses and create shopping hotspots, but also helps create safety by having even dark, narrow alleys have frequent foot traffic.
While the book uses Tokyo as an example to learn from, it stresses freqeuntly that having a city with these traits is not unique to Tokyo or Japan.
I did learn some idiosyncrancies more specific to Tokyo and Japan:
-Lack of public sitting areas is to disincentivize congregation that would impede walking traffic flows.
-Japan's supposed conformity to social norms did not crystallize until fairly recently.
-Tokyo alternates high rises with low rises because high rises are generally newer and can therefore be built under stricter fire codes, creating fire breaks.
Well, all the above I think the book presents enough evidence and connects the dots enough to be plausible, but not necessarily strong evidence. But it is still quite interesting to think about, of how the not strictly planned urban design could have happened.
November 29, 2025
This is the last of three urban design books that I set out to read this week to find inspiration for our urban design group project!! The diagrams are so creative and easy to understand, and I loved the axonometric drawings. I appreciate how this book breaks down orientalist and home-baked nihonjinron, which claim that cultural essentialism makes Tokyo the way it is. I appreciated the authors bringing in a Gehl anecdote, sharing how he originally struggled to bring his ideas from observing public space in Italy to the Netherlands. My favorite writing in the book was the final chapter, which explains issues with corporate-led urbanism (or neoliberal urbanism). The most interesting parts of this chapter were: issues with socially stratified vertical garden cities like Roppongi Hills; the hostile design of privately owned public spaces; and developers pushing to build 40+ story skyscrapers in the name of climate resilience from floods/earthquakes, despite past incidents of mechanical failures during disasters, and ignoring the fact that high-rises obliterate social resilience.
A quote about the blueprints of emergent Tokyo: "Neighborhoods filled with a multiplicity of independent owners and operators, economies of agglomeration, small-scale architecture, urban spaces that are both physically and socially permeable, interconnected networks rather than top-down hierarchies, and bottom-up incremental growth rather than corporate redevelopment."
I hope to bring in the following ideas from the book to use in our design project:
- second-floor windows and terraces overlooking alleyways for safety and more of a community feel
- encouraging use of back streets and side streets (like the redundant spaces of ankyos)
- fun vertical signage like in Zakkyo buildings
- denser, smaller commercial areas with independent owners and personalities + easy ground-floor access
- and of course, so much diagram inspo!!
A quote about the blueprints of emergent Tokyo: "Neighborhoods filled with a multiplicity of independent owners and operators, economies of agglomeration, small-scale architecture, urban spaces that are both physically and socially permeable, interconnected networks rather than top-down hierarchies, and bottom-up incremental growth rather than corporate redevelopment."
I hope to bring in the following ideas from the book to use in our design project:
- second-floor windows and terraces overlooking alleyways for safety and more of a community feel
- encouraging use of back streets and side streets (like the redundant spaces of ankyos)
- fun vertical signage like in Zakkyo buildings
- denser, smaller commercial areas with independent owners and personalities + easy ground-floor access
- and of course, so much diagram inspo!!
February 3, 2025
This feels like one of those lightning in a bottle moments, where aimlessly watching videos online or surfing the web actually leads you to a book or organization that intrests you greatly. I came across this book thanks to Dami Lee and her videos on architecture, notably one on the development of Tokyo.
I am no urban designer or architect, I merely find these subjects to be quite interesting, probably in part due to greater online discourse in these subjects (notably urban planning) in recent years. Unfortunately, a great deal of this online discourse is very euro-centric, tending to miss valuable insight that other cities from around the world. Tokyo, however, does tend to get discussed a great deal even with the euro-centrism present in these communities, however this leads to a very orientalist view of Tokyo (and Japanese cities more broadly), other-ifying a city and community that we can learn a lot from. Jorge Almazán's book *Emergent Tokyo* is one of the few pieces of reading I have engaged with that has laid this fact bare, and then analyzed Tokyo with this understanding.
The lens by which the principles of Tokyo's ground-up development are discussed (through emergence), is incredibly interesting, and something I feel a lot of modern urbanists neglect. I think a lot of people know that corporate-led urbanism tends to feel unsavour, or tends to feel rather exclusionary, but, at least for me, it tends to be difficult to fully understand why I feel that way. Almazán's analysis on how these environment are shaped, and on how they differ to more agglomerative, community-based environments, makes the distinction bare. Now it seems I won't be able to not see any of the things he discusses or warns about in this book in the cities that I have lived in.
This is a really great read.
I am no urban designer or architect, I merely find these subjects to be quite interesting, probably in part due to greater online discourse in these subjects (notably urban planning) in recent years. Unfortunately, a great deal of this online discourse is very euro-centric, tending to miss valuable insight that other cities from around the world. Tokyo, however, does tend to get discussed a great deal even with the euro-centrism present in these communities, however this leads to a very orientalist view of Tokyo (and Japanese cities more broadly), other-ifying a city and community that we can learn a lot from. Jorge Almazán's book *Emergent Tokyo* is one of the few pieces of reading I have engaged with that has laid this fact bare, and then analyzed Tokyo with this understanding.
The lens by which the principles of Tokyo's ground-up development are discussed (through emergence), is incredibly interesting, and something I feel a lot of modern urbanists neglect. I think a lot of people know that corporate-led urbanism tends to feel unsavour, or tends to feel rather exclusionary, but, at least for me, it tends to be difficult to fully understand why I feel that way. Almazán's analysis on how these environment are shaped, and on how they differ to more agglomerative, community-based environments, makes the distinction bare. Now it seems I won't be able to not see any of the things he discusses or warns about in this book in the cities that I have lived in.
This is a really great read.
December 1, 2023
I found the various graphs, diagrams, images, and especially the detailed views that supplemented the text a joy to look at and they helped me better understand what the author was trying to summarize about the city.
My favorite section was the one on ankyo streets. Ankyo means 'dark canal'. Tokyo used to be a water city of the likes of Venice, but most of the waterways were covered up (sometimes hastily) over the past century. This is a sad fact, but on the positive side many of these covered waterways are now used as intimate walking spaces and as extensions of residences or businesses. The narrowness of these streets along with the topographical lopsidedness compared to neighboring streets prevents car access. It seems fitting that on these streets you can see greenery growing as a result of the water still flowing underneath. The waterways are trying to provide something to us even as we have done our best to cover them up and forget about them.
I also enjoyed the section on undertrack infills, and I wish cities in the US would incorporate these. A lot of times the empty spaces underneath expressways and elevated rail tracks are pretty sketchy. It would be nice to have shopping or restaurant facilities built underneath. It seems like a much better use of space.
My favorite section was the one on ankyo streets. Ankyo means 'dark canal'. Tokyo used to be a water city of the likes of Venice, but most of the waterways were covered up (sometimes hastily) over the past century. This is a sad fact, but on the positive side many of these covered waterways are now used as intimate walking spaces and as extensions of residences or businesses. The narrowness of these streets along with the topographical lopsidedness compared to neighboring streets prevents car access. It seems fitting that on these streets you can see greenery growing as a result of the water still flowing underneath. The waterways are trying to provide something to us even as we have done our best to cover them up and forget about them.
I also enjoyed the section on undertrack infills, and I wish cities in the US would incorporate these. A lot of times the empty spaces underneath expressways and elevated rail tracks are pretty sketchy. It would be nice to have shopping or restaurant facilities built underneath. It seems like a much better use of space.
September 19, 2024
I've been trying to convince my book club to read this for a while, but finally gave up because everyone else was finding it too hard to obtain copies, and just read my copy on my own. While it wasn't as much a general history of post-World War II Tokyo's development as I'd hoped, it was still a very interesting book that taught me a lot about Tokyo's urban form. Some of it, to be clear, stuff the authors assumed their audience already knew, since the book is written as an attempt to explain the origin and persistence certain characteristics of Tokyo's urban form rather than as an introduction for someone who isn't already familiar with them. That said, I still felt myself wishing it was longer and more in-depth, and that I had come away with more of an answer to certain questions, such as why zakkyo multi-story, multi-tenant retail/commercial buildings with retail on more than just the first floor seem to work so well in Japan and other rich Asian countries, but not at all in North American and European cities: they seem like an effective way to increase some sorts of density, but I'm not at all sure what it would take to make them exist and be functional, even if they were made legal by zoning.
September 26, 2024
I’m not an architect, and I know nothing about urbanism or Tokyo, but this book was pretty interesting.
I like the authors’ approach of writing it for architects as well as anyone interested in learning about Tokyo’s emergent urbanism patterns. The way it’s written makes it super easy to follow (I only had to google one term once: F.A.R.)
The book is full of diagrams and pictures, which makes it even more digestible and clear.
I also appreciated the authors’ (as far as I can see) well-balanced appraisals of emergent patterns and their alternatives (e.g. low-rise neighborhoods vs high-rise luxury developments). They are upfront about each example’s shortcomings too.
One thing I missed is more examples of the emergent patterns they propose: yokochō, zakkyo buildings, ankyo streets, undertrack infills and low rise dense neighborhoods. For each of these, there are 3 examples in modern Tokyo, but although they imply (and in fact highlight in a map) other instances, it would have been nice to at least see a list of them so that the curious reader can explore each pattern/ location further.
I like the authors’ approach of writing it for architects as well as anyone interested in learning about Tokyo’s emergent urbanism patterns. The way it’s written makes it super easy to follow (I only had to google one term once: F.A.R.)
The book is full of diagrams and pictures, which makes it even more digestible and clear.
I also appreciated the authors’ (as far as I can see) well-balanced appraisals of emergent patterns and their alternatives (e.g. low-rise neighborhoods vs high-rise luxury developments). They are upfront about each example’s shortcomings too.
One thing I missed is more examples of the emergent patterns they propose: yokochō, zakkyo buildings, ankyo streets, undertrack infills and low rise dense neighborhoods. For each of these, there are 3 examples in modern Tokyo, but although they imply (and in fact highlight in a map) other instances, it would have been nice to at least see a list of them so that the curious reader can explore each pattern/ location further.
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