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Not that it isn't true, but I think the "all kids dream of Tokyo" is at least partly one of those tropes that keeps coming up because it always has. Fwiw though Tokyo is so big it's got its own Governor, the "youngest" city is Fukuoka, which is taking full advantage of it being the closest point to S.Korea (to Japan what Japan is to weebs) & cheaper to live & run a business in than Tokyo. Also has the good fortune of not being (until recently) governed by a crook, but that's neither here nor there. However, Tokyo is where most anime (& media products in general) is made, aired & bought, & where the people making it moved to when they were young, so naturally it's where all the cool cartoon kids want to go.

DerekL1963 wrote:

Some white collar jobs can easily be moved... many others cannot be however. The big reason cities persist is that telecommuting doesn't work as well in real life as it's assumed to, and direct physical access makes so many things so much easier.

While physical presence makes things SLIGHTLY easier, the fact is that it's not really that much of a net gain. If it was, you wouldn't have development and call centers and various other tasks moving overseas despite their upper management being in the US. Here in Austin they are STARTING to try pushing telecommuting simply to ease traffic problems (due to DRASTIC failures to improve infrastructure). There are definitely times when I want to look people in the eye (easily doable with teleconferencing on consumer grade technology like Skype) or look over their shoulder, but that's all a question of "convenience" rather than necessity.

Any Fortune500 company has multiple offices, and all of them have times when people in one office need to work with people in another office in a different city. Somehow they make that work every single day. Heck, we're already close to being able to VR a conference room if people REALLY wanted to do that. The only real question is if pioneers want to focus on Miku-like holograms or Google-glass improvements.

I've spend slightly over half of my 66 years on this planet living in Japan; 80% of it in Kansai, and the past two years in Tokyo, and I can't get out of Tokyo fast enough. I'd almost sooner return to the US that stay in Tokyo. Give me Osaka any day of the week.

The Japanese dream of living in Tokyo is akin to the American dream of moving to NYC. It's great when you're young, but once you live in either city for six months, with the noise, the crowds, the rush, and everything else that comes with it, the country starts looking good real quick.

HeeroTX wrote:

DerekL1963 wrote:

Some white collar jobs can easily be moved... many others cannot be however. The big reason cities persist is that telecommuting doesn't work as well in real life as it's assumed to, and direct physical access makes so many things so much easier.

While physical presence makes things SLIGHTLY easier, the fact is that it's not really that much of a net gain. If it was, you wouldn't have development and call centers and various other tasks moving overseas despite their upper management being in the US.

Apples and oranges.

Um... call centers are largely low paid drones following a script. They're outsourced to rural America and overseas because drones are cheaper there than in the big city. (Outsourced, not telecommuting.)

And while *some* development is moving overseas, some is moving back - and a lot never left and aren't going to. And, like the drones in the call centers, what work is sent overseas is sent there because it's much cheaper to do so.

This doesn't generally hold true for experienced workers remaining in the same country.
(Where the company is still on the hook for Social Security, L&I, health care, etc... etc... as well as the general higher cost of living driving salaries.)

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Here in Austin they are STARTING to try pushing telecommuting simply to ease traffic problems (due to DRASTIC failures to improve infrastructure).

Trust me, not the first time a city has pushed a buzzword or fashionable solution that actually unworkable in practice - and it won't be the last time either.

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Any Fortune500 company has multiple offices, and all of them have times when people in one office need to work with people in another office in a different city. Somehow they make that work every single day.

Yeah, people working in groups work with other groups on a daily basis - which is completely unlike the much finer grained problem of trying to get scattered telecommuting individuals working together.

DerekL1963 wrote:

Small town living simply isn't attractive to very many people. And this isn't a new thing, in America post-WWI there was a saying "how are you going to keep them on the farm once they've seen Paree (Paris)?" And while the situation isn't generally quite as desperate as it is in Japan, the US and pretty much the rest of the First World are already on the same slope.

Is it unpopular even in the United States? I live in a megalopolis, and I frequently hear people complaining about how city life is just too complicated and people want to go live out somewhere slow and remote when they retire. But I guess that's that: Rural living is seen around here not as a place to achieve one's dream, but a place to be AFTER you've done so.

AJ (LordNikon) wrote:

The Japanese dream of living in Tokyo is akin to the American dream of moving to NYC. It's great when you're young, but once you live in either city for six months, with the noise, the crowds, the rush, and everything else that comes with it, the country starts looking good real quick.

A pattern I've noticed is that it's based on where one grows up: People are more likely than not to prefer the environment they grew up in between urban and rural. I spent most of my life living in a fast-paced big city, and when I lived in a smaller town for college, I found myself anxious at times due to a lack of things to do that I wanted to do or stores that sold what I wanted to buy. At the same time, however, I noticed natives of that town seemed perfectly comfortable and didn't really desire those game systems, orange chicken (yes, this town was so small, it didn't even have its own Chinese restaurant), Pokémon TCG Leagues (supposedly, one used to exist but was discontinued due to a lack of interest), or trivia books I had to spend hours traveling to another town for, and I was seen as the weird one who was into all this eclectic stuff.

(I could've theoretically ordered these things online, except for the League, of course, but the university's mail system was extremely cumbersome and required me to travel by bus for a few miles and then fill out some paperwork and give proof of identity just to pick up my mail. It was nuts.)

On the note about telecommuting, I say that until you work in the business community, you won't fully grasp how important a premium that person-to-person contact is even today. My brother has worked for two different car companies. He's told me of young execs, guys in their thirties, who insist on flying to Detroit to see in person drawings and computer renders of projects, and talk to the design team about those projects. I've talked with a number of lawyers who will NOT do business with another lawyer unless they are able to sit down across a table from that person. So that is a part of the issue.

I do agree the US is an outlier, mainly because most other countries around the world would sparsely be considered a state, from a geographical standpoint. But as a result, each state tends to act as something of a microcosm of the same phenomenon. Again, there are still exceptions (California, agian because of its sheer size, I think), but for the most part your goal tends to be to get to one of the big cities in a given state. Much like it is the case that there is still a lot going on in cities other than Tokyo, there's plenty going on in Buffalo or Syracuse, but if you live in New York state, your goal is still NYC, not one of the other cities. If you live in Florida, you you have Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale, but Miami still tends to be the primary goal.

AJ (LordNikon) wrote:

The Japanese dream of living in Tokyo is akin to the American dream of moving to NYC. It's great when you're young, but once you live in either city for six months, with the noise, the crowds, the rush, and everything else that comes with it, the country starts looking good real quick.

I once saw a demographic analysis of the Bay area that showed just that... San Francisco proper skewed sharply younger and while there were couples, families were present in much lower numbers than you might expect. But when you expanded to the whole metropolitan Bay area you found the families - out in the bedroom communities.

SF may be an extreme case (it usually is), but I've heard anecdotal evidence to the same end here with regards to Seattle. Younger people moving into the city, especially the core, while older people and families are moving out to the suburbs and exurbs.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

DerekL1963 wrote:

Small town living simply isn't attractive to very many people. And this isn't a new thing, in America post-WWI there was a saying "how are you going to keep them on the farm once they've seen Paree (Paris)?" And while the situation isn't generally quite as desperate as it is in Japan, the US and pretty much the rest of the First World are already on the same slope.

Is it unpopular even in the United States? I live in a megalopolis, and I frequently hear people complaining about how city life is just too complicated and people want to go live out somewhere slow and remote when they retire. But I guess that's that: Rural living is seen around here not as a place to achieve one's dream, but a place to be AFTER you've done so.

I live in a small town on the edge of a large metropolitan area. We frequently get people moving out here because the city is too big, crowded, expensive, etc... etc... Almost all of the ones I know complain about how the Peninsula isn't like the City. Almost no nightlife, much more limited shopping, fewer restaurants (and practically no fine dining), etc... etc... They don't care to live in the city, but they're not fond of being out here nearly in the sticks either. (And it's made worse by the local geography.... commuting is (barely) practical, but it's difficult to just pop over to the city on a whim.)

Hiroshima has over a million people. Amazing how well it recovered after you-know-what.

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Is it unpopular even in the United States? I live in a megalopolis, and I frequently hear people complaining about how city life is just too complicated and people want to go live out somewhere slow and remote when they retire. But I guess that's that: Rural living is seen around here not as a place to achieve one's dream, but a place to be AFTER you've done so.

Rural life isn't the dream for most Americans, suburban/medium-sized city life is. The largest chunk of the US population lives in cities of over 100,000 but under a million. When people move out of LA to escape the big-city life, they usually don't move out to Baker ( a town of less than 1,000 in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert), they move to Rancho Cucamonga ( a city of over 150,000 about half an hour away from downtown LA).

The US is fairly unique in this regard, as most countries have the majority of their population either concentrated in mega-cities (if it's a developed nation), or scattered across countless rural areas (if it's a developing nation). Having the largest chunk of your population living in countless medium-sized cities and suburbs is mostly an American thing.

For a charming reverse example I recommend the movie Wood Job, about a graduate from Tokyo who decides to take a one-year forest-clearing course in the middle of nowhere and has to deal with all the boredom and inconvenience that entails.

Mojave wrote:

Rural life isn't the dream for most Americans, suburban/medium-sized city life is. The largest chunk of the US population lives in cities of over 100,000 but under a million. When people move out of LA to escape the big-city life, they usually don't move out to Baker ( a town of less than 1,000 in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert), they move to Rancho Cucamonga ( a city of over 150,000 about half an hour away from downtown LA).

The US is fairly unique in this regard, as most countries have the majority of their population either concentrated in mega-cities (if it's a developed nation), or scattered across countless rural areas (if it's a developing nation). Having the largest chunk of your population living in countless medium-sized cities and suburbs is mostly an American thing.

Hmm, now that you pointed it out, that sounds about right. I live in the suburbs but I hear a lot of these complaints, so perhaps even suburban life is too much and they want somewhere more remote.

But yeah, those small-medium size cities have the slower pace they want with the modern conveniences nearby.

from the top of tokyo tower on a clear day i couldnt see the edge of tokyo, besides were they was water or mountains. its massive

Mojave wrote:

Rural life isn't the dream for most Americans, suburban/medium-sized city life is. The largest chunk of the US population lives in cities of over 100,000 but under a million. When people move out of LA to escape the big-city life, they usually don't move out to Baker ( a town of less than 1,000 in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave Desert), they move to Rancho Cucamonga ( a city of over 150,000 about half an hour away from downtown LA).

The US is fairly unique in this regard, as most countries have the majority of their population either concentrated in mega-cities (if it's a developed nation), or scattered across countless rural areas (if it's a developing nation). Having the largest chunk of your population living in countless medium-sized cities and suburbs is mostly an American thing.

0.o Rancho Cucamonga may be a half hour outside of downtown LA and a legally distinct medium city on it's own - that's the only real distinction. It's very much part of the Los Angeles metroplex and not really all that different from a district or ward (or whatever the local term is) in a unitary mega-city such as Tokyo. (The only way you can tell you've swapped cities in the LA Metroplex is the color of the street signs change.) It wouldn't be what it was if it weren't for it's proximity to LA.

And Tokyo and many other mega-cities have suburbs and medium sized cities making up part of the total metroplex as well.

What makes America unique are two things; First, the large number of large top-drawer cities/metroplexes (LA, NY, SF/Bay area, Chicago, Boston, etc...) rather than having One Big City. Second, the even larger number of truly independent (physically, economically, legally, and geographically) medium sized cities - Tulsa, Spokane, Jacksonville (FL), Buffalo, St Louis, New Orleans, Charleston, Birmingham (AL)...

There's a couple of dozen cities of 100k or larger in the US that aren't part of a larger metroplex and probably a dozen more important ones right off the bottom of that list.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

That this question was asked made me think of that sentiment--I figured it must be popular for the youth in Japan to go to Tokyo, and that must be a strange thought for someone in the United States (or, to a lesser extent, Canada and Australia) who wants to do the opposite: Moving from a big city into the countryside. Country life is pretty romanticized in the United States (probably because of our frontier history and our vast expanses of open land, which I suspect is why I hear similar mindsets from Canadians and Australians) as being quiet, idyllic, relaxed, independent, and surrounded by friendly warm people.

As an Australian, let me say: no we don't. Sure you will get a handful of people who want a quieter, more relaxed environment, but they are the exception, not the norm. Most of the reasons discussed for Japan hold true enough here, except you've got slightly more choice of cities, and none of them are the nation's capital. As for "surrounded by friendly warm people" in rural areas, that depends how white, Christian, and conservative you are.

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0.o Rancho Cucamonga may be a half hour outside of downtown LA and a legally distinct medium city on it's own - that's the only real distinction. It's very much part of the Los Angeles metroplex and not really all that different from a district or ward (or whatever the local term is) in a unitary mega-city such as Tokyo. (The only way you can tell you've swapped cities in the LA Metroplex is the color of the street signs change.) It wouldn't be what it was if it weren't for it's proximity to LA.

Not quite. While it's true that the cities directly on the border of LA proper function largely as districts/wards, anything further than about 20 minutes away from the city limits acts very much as its own city. Especially because mountains and hills often physically separate them from LA. Places like Rancho Cucamonga have their own cultural and economic infrastructure, distinct from LA's. While many people there do work in LA, it also has its own workplace and entertainment infrastructure comparable to geographically distinct medium-sized cities. The places in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area don't really function that way, as infrastructure-wise and culturally as well they're pretty much indistinguishable from Tokyo.

Those sort of medium-sized suburbs having their own infrastructure is very much a mostly American oddity. I lived around Hamburg, Germany for a while, and that sort of thing doesn't exist there. The closest cities of over 100k population to it are 45 minutes away across swaths of farmland, and all the neighboring towns to Hamburg of 10-30k are all dependent mostly on Hamburg's infrastructure. I lived in a town on Hamburg's border named Ahrensburg, and aside from 2-3 grocery stores and maybe 10-15 other shops (mostly food places), there's pretty much nothing else there. Everyone there goes into Hamburg to do anything with their free-time. Ahrensburg couldn't survive without Hamburg, whereas Rancho Cucamonga still has all the infrastructure needed to survive on its own if anything happened to LA. Mid-sized suburbs and commuter cities that have their own fully-functional infrastructure are quite uncommon outside the US, and are different functionally than wards of mega-cities like Tokyo are.

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