Interesting article about living in Tokyo. In particular it contains this banger of a passage:
How a compact metro area of 37 million people manages to feel this relaxed isn’t really a mystery: the city declared war on cars, and then won that war. Citywide, there are 0.32 cars per household, half the level in New York or London. Nothing is designed with the expectation that normal people own a car, because they don’t. Every shop that sells something too big to carry in a bag offers delivery.
The streets are for pedestrians: every office, school, gym, hospital and shop is built on the assumption that you’ll walk there. There’s no on-street parking. Aside from main arterial roads, streets have no sidewalks: it’s fine to just walk right down the middle. Normal people don’t drive, road traffic is dominated by delivery vans, taxis and buses.
Tokyo makes it easier, more convenient and cheaper not to own a car, so people don’t. Every service you might need is packed into even higher-density pockets right next to or on top of a train station.
The result is an urban marvel: amazingly convenient, easy to navigate, and pleasant. Living here radicalizes you. Transit-centered hyper-density is just a smarter, more convenient, objectively better way to build a city than the car-choked messes we insist on in North America.
Source is not directly urbanism-related but still highly recommended.