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Hello from our little single stair flat in Ueno

6 units. 1 per floor, a small stair and tiny elevator - and a small pub on the ground level

Fine grained small frontage urbanism. No min frontage req, no parking min, single stair.

Exterior stair similar to vancouver’s code (but taller than 6 storey)

Very limited space used for parking

Full use of the space under the train deck

20km/h local streets blend ped / bike / car. Lots of seniors on bikes cruising by.

I love the small scale restaurant / brewery / shop scene (in the small streets with small buildings)

In the building we’re staying in the stairs, landings and elevator are all small - too small for real accessibility - but the layout is very simple

The travel distance is short and the occupant load is very low with 1 unit per floor. I’ll have to go up to the top to see what kind of smoke control system is used.

Bike share system (Though this is the only one we’ve seen so far)

Lots of 10’ to 15’ wide buildings. Steel moment frame. Minimal envelope compared to Vancouver.

All of BC’s population would fit in this photo

A bit taller than the CN tower

Light show

There’s actually a lot of bike share - it’s just more compact / hidden.

5 storey elementary school with ball park / playground on the roof and city park adjacent. Large central daylit stair.

Nice photos! I've lived in and been connected to Japan for a long long time. This all seems very normal and practical to me. I think the real problem we run into in BC is racism. According to the FB vox populi, this sort of urbanism is considered "Asian", practically subhuman.

Whenever I post this on FB (as mentioned, a reliable vox pop-meter) people think it's a hellscape. Without realizing how relatively affordable Tokyo is compared to even Victoria.