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It's easier to get lost in Tokyo. Manhattan is hard to get lost in, for one, you'll hit river if you got to far east or west, it's a simple grid layout and there's a lot of landmarks that you'll hit(you know when you hit Central Park or the Battery). Brooklyn and Queens are a more spread out, but you hit major avenues you'll figure out where you are and you have several intersecting grid patterns.
Tokyo on the other hand is sort of a jumble of mid-level dense neighborhoods in between the major ones that are hard to figure out if you're not familiar with the city. The big areas are around major train stations so those are easy to get to, but I've been all over Tokyo and I still have trouble understanding the orientation of certain areas. There's not a lot of big geographic indicators either except for the small river or bay.
Cities like Tokyo or Mexico City or Sao Paulo seem much easier to get lost in throughout the expanse of the city then New York to be honest.
New York is by far the most overwhelming and impressive city in the United States.
Nothing in this country comes close to how urban and developed it is. Plus, Philadelphia is near New York.
But I'm going to visit Tokyo one of these days and check it out, hopefully in the next few years. I've got some other international trips on my list to take between now and then.
Last edited by BigCityDreamer; 03-23-2014 at 09:37 AM..
Most of Manhattan looks sleepy next to this, frankly.
LA is to SF what Tokyo is to NYC. SF has the nicer core, but only a fool would think the city feels bigger than Los Angeles.
Most of Tokyo also looks sleepy next to those. There's actually quite a bit of variation in how busy/how much activity different parts of Tokyo are. That being said, Penn Station can feel that congested at times, too, but that is as much a testament to its current poor design.
The LA to SF versus Tokyo to NYC analogy is interesting. Tokyo is bigger, but Manhattan does pack in greater density than much of the rest of Tokyo over a pretty good amount of area. It's really once you get a bit further out from the core that Tokyo does a much more gradual dropoff while NYC does a much more severe one (especially as you head outside the borders of NYC or hit Eastern Queens or Staten Island). Tokyo is certainly the bigger city compared to NYC, but it takes a while to realize or feel that compared to realizing SF is smaller than LA.
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Originally Posted by Noggin of Rum
In my opinion, Central Paris is the most impressive, though it lacks the intangibles that make New York and London special.
Visually and experience wise Manhattan is too grey, tired and crumbling to impress me. And don't get me started on the mess.
Still I would prefer it over Tokyo. There's only so much anime style kawai one can take before one turns bats in the belfry crazy.
Manhattan aside from not having figured out a better way to collect garbage, isn't so bad, is it?
Tokyo has a lot more than anime style--the city is very multifaceted.
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Originally Posted by The Postman
Didn't realise how much the two skylines were separated, it doesn't seem like that walking through it. Either way, I'd say everything from Central park down has that 'downtown' feel when comparing to other cities.
That area is still packed with dense mid-rises if not skyscrapers--hard to notice the difference without having your eyes glued to the top of the head the whole top.
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Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives
Nope, but speaking of "spread out".
Tokyo: 3300 sq miles, 11400 ppsm
New York: 4495 sq miles, 4600 ppsm
Los Angeles: 2432 sq miles 6300 ppsm
San Francisco: 1080 sq miles, 5600 ppsm
Looks like the Tri-State area wins that honor--it's nearly twice as large as LA's footprint!
Notice how Tokyo is 2.5x as dense as NY. If the two regions were of similar population, it would be a huge deal. The fact that Tokyo has over 15 million more people makes it an unfathomable huge deal. Tokyo is the ultimate monster city. Only Seoul gives it a run for its money in the developed world.
That measurement by itself seems disingenuous. You need to provide the context of what those borders include and why they should be drawn that way. It's obvious that any 2432 square miles or 1080 square miles set and centered in NYC is going to be denser than the equivalent area in LA and SF--the sprawl out you're talking about is large estates and the way that NYC's metro has a large web of villages and cities that became connected to NYC through mass transit that often feature a good deal of greenspace in between.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus
It's easier to get lost in Tokyo. Manhattan is hard to get lost in, for one, you'll hit river if you got to far east or west, it's a simple grid layout and there's a lot of landmarks that you'll hit(you know when you hit Central Park or the Battery). Brooklyn and Queens are a more spread out, but you hit major avenues you'll figure out where you are and you have several intersecting grid patterns.
Tokyo on the other hand is sort of a jumble of mid-level dense neighborhoods in between the major ones that are hard to figure out if you're not familiar with the city. The big areas are around major train stations so those are easy to get to, but I've been all over Tokyo and I still have trouble understanding the orientation of certain areas. There's not a lot of big geographic indicators either except for the small river or bay.
Cities like Tokyo or Mexico City or Sao Paulo seem much easier to get lost in throughout the expanse of the city then New York to be honest.
Yea, riding around Tokyo's subways feels like going through wormholes in a way that NYC does not. It didn't take me too long to make a mental map in my head of a good deal of NYC, but Tokyo was exciting in having traveled by bus or car from one place around a subway station to another and realizing that two places that used to be fully separated in my head now actually have a real physical path from one to another rather than floating in islands.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-23-2014 at 02:54 PM..
Tokyo is much larger. It includes the most populated areas of neighboring prefectures. The only way New York feels larger is vertically. Most of the buildings in Tokyo are not very tall due to the earthquake risk. It's also much more crowded overall, though parts of New York can feel overwhelmingly crowed at times as well. New York is more impressive though. More interesting and iconic architecture, bridges, etc. Most of the classic Chinese-influenced Japanese architecture is a rare sight in Tokyo. You'll mostly see quickly built, small, cheap buildings.
Tokyo eats up NY overall. In NY it's all about the core area such as Manhattan. Once your out of those NY is a sleepy and depressing looking city
Tokyo in comparison is huge throughout. Every area you go in Tokyo has a nice vibe and a big city feel.
In other words Tokyo feels like an endless city.
Most of Manhattan looks sleepy next to this, frankly.
That looks less crowded than Penn Station at rush hour. There's space between the people. More from poor design, but still it doesn't look that bad. This before July 4th weekend, so it's a bit extreme.
Of course Tokyo has a higher density than New York since more persons are living on a smaller area.
For those who say Tokyo is bigger, please take a look at the maps and post your calculations and definitions here, so that everybody can follow and understand it. The official numbers comparing the aera NYC (USA) and Tokyo (Japan) are pretty wrong. So simply do it on your own by measuring it. You will find that New York is about 30% larger than Tokyo.
L.A. is larger as Tokyo as well and almost as big as the NY-area.
I can't talk about the feelings which one is bigger. I never was in Tokyo but i can understand that the "city-part" (centre) of the huge aera is bigger in Tokyo than in NY, which has much more suburbans and less "real city" than Tokyo. But in the total area NY is clearly bigger and by far.
Of course Tokyo has a higher density than New York since more persons are living on a smaller area.
For those who say Tokyo is bigger, please take a look at the maps and post your calculations and definitions here, so that everybody can follow and understand it. The official numbers comparing the aera NYC (USA) and Tokyo (Japan) are pretty wrong. So simply do it on your own by measuring it. You will find that New York is about 30% larger than Tokyo.
L.A. is larger as Tokyo as well and almost as big as the NY-area.
I can't talk about the feelings which one is bigger. I never was in Tokyo but i can understand that the "city-part" (centre) of the huge aera is bigger in Tokyo than in NY, which has much more suburbans and less "real city" than Tokyo. But in the total area NY is clearly bigger and by far.
New York's 'downtown area' (NOT the downtown financial district) is the largest of any city I've ever been to.
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