A review by tbrnichols
Emergent Tokyo: Patterns of Spontaneous Micro-Urbanism by Joe McReynolds, Jorge Almazan, Studiolab

hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

I really liked the ideas about the benefits of agglomeration over scale and I thought the book did a great job of helping the reader understand what made the different districts talked about valuable. I did think the yokocho portion was by far the most compelling, and didn't feel like all of the later sections were as well fleshed out. Also I thought there were some weird leftist ticks in the writing like decrying "luxury housing" without really explaining what they meant or how it undermines the fabric of the neighborhood. And I think their thesis about an impending housing crisis in Tokyo akin to that in NYC or Paris was pretty absurd, absent a massive downzoning of Tokyo. Overall some really interesting demonstrations of what great urban spaces can look like and how they can be cultivated.