Tokyo's retro shotengai arcades are falling victim to gentrification

Other factors behind the decline of shotengai are the relaxing of restrictions on the size, location, and operating hours of larger retailers, partly as a result of international pressure [1, in Japanese]; fewer young people wanting to take over family businesses; more women with full-time jobs and less time to shop; and, as elsewhere, competition from online shopping.

But individual-run retail businesses are still common in Japan. While it isn’t easy to make a living at it, many people still aspire to run their own shops or restaurants and distinctive new ones appear all the time. Just yesterday, I noticed a small, trendy-looking restaurant [2] that has opened a few blocks from where I live in Yokohama. It’s not the kind of food I particularly like and the location on a quiet residential street seems risky, but I was glad to see them there and hope they succeed.

[1] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E8%A6%8F%E6%A8%A1%E5...

[2] https://haseshige.jp/

I think you're right. Like the giant one in Musashi-Koyama is thriving at the start but dead at the end. The one in Musashi-Shinjou is really dead. So is the Kyoto Sanjo Shotengai. There's no "gentrification". There's just no customers.

That said, I really wish some breakout architect would find a way to design a new building with space for more small shops that became a hit design. And then in my dream other architects would start copying. They built Shibuya Cast. There used to be 8-12 indie stores there. Now there's 3 chain stores. I think Sakara Stage might have done a better job there. I'm not sure but I think if I count the stores/restaurants it displaced there might be more now then before. Though I expect rent is way too high.

Some places, like Toranomon Hills have the indoor restaurant yokochou type areas though I'm sure they are too expensive. Shibuya Sakura Stage also has one. Neither get that feeling like say, Akabane's bar area though. Or Nakano or Koenji. I hope Nakano is not going to lose theirs with all the construction. Shibuya though is going to lose a bunch more. A 30+ story building is under construction on Dogenzaka next to Mark City. Another is 30+ story is going on Miyamasa-Zaka between Meiji-Dori and Aoyama Dori where the post office is. There's a bunch super indie of restaurants there because the rent is cheap given the buildings are old. But maybe it will be designed like Sakura Stage to support more. I can cross my fingers.

There's a 30+ story building going in where the Tokyu Honten was but given that was just a department store the new building will have more shops than the department store had, depending on how you count.

There's yet another 30+ story building going in behind Hikarie. I'm not sure there's anything there it's displacing though. I mean, it is displacing stuff but nothing I've ever gone to, unlike some of the others.

I am not sure what do you mean by forward looking? There are huge shopping districts under construction even right now in very central locations in Tokyo, basically building office towers and shopping malls.

What's forward looking about that? Other than that, the japanese tend to build roughly the same kind of low-riser/high-riser condominiums with varying quality literally everywhere. So it's not very easy to find and buy truly livable areas in downtown Tokyo right now, unless you are highly above the 80th-90th wage bracket.

Also, I find it odd to say that it's a society which only looks forward right now, when a right-wing populist party has just become tenfold stronger in the last parliamentary elections by propagating the idea of "traditional family values" (as in women to stay home instead of working).

While it's true that there are aspects of life which are more advanced than in other countries, but after living here for a decade, I can confidently say it's a mixed bag.

Just a silly example: when I came to the country, front loading drum type washing machines were a rare sight here, while that had been the norm for decades in many European countries. Also, the idea of insulating the houses from cold and heat and condensation was not at all considered until the government started pushing some tax breaks and whatnot to make the idea catch on and make housing more energy conscious. Etc, etc. Japan in many aspects were/is behind the times.

I wish people would stop idealizing japan as some kind of wonderland...

> Their cities are forward looking, more efficient, developing higher so less people need to commute it's a necessity that eventually will kill many of these older districts, but so be it if it spares tens of thousands from commuting every day.

What's the end game with this? Identikit cities with little to no character, all created to prioritise convenience. For people that care more about work than their life outside of work, they aren't going to care much, but for people that are the opposite the loss of culture is more strongly felt.

Are you thinking about Tokyo Lens coverage?

Saying Goodbye to Tokyo's TINIEST Shop | Akihabara Tokyo Lens · Aug 14, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA1UNJirOTI

I Rebuilt JAPAN'S TINIEST SHOP!! Tokyo Lens · Aug 20, 2023 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsimPVu1aLU

Radio kaikan. It's been remade to focus on anime/otaku stuff like the rest of akibahara. There just isn't the demand for buying niche electronic parts in person anymore.

It still remains though. In Osaka dendentown there is a shop that exclusively sells screws.

Enlighten me as to what's wrong with the Osaka train station? Conceivably I would imagine that it's built with a bit of a buffer to handle the demand that such an infrastructure project could eventually service. What do you think they did wrong?