kev

In sum, zakkyo buildings are part of the reason why Japan is such a consumer paradise. Greater Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants, compared to only 13,000 in Paris and 25,000 in NYC. Some of that is because of the Japanese government’s strong support for small retail businesses. But some of it is probably due to zakkyo buildings making it possible to sustain more small independent shops.

Long-term thinking suddenly makes short-term thinking appear incredibly silly.

if you want to be able to briskly climb stairs when you are 75, you need to be in the top 95th percentile of cardiovascular fitness.

from the ‘consumer story’ to the ‘citizen story’

There is something about this coexistence and codependency of the public and the private which feels even more important now than it was in our last Gilded Age.