Published inDispatches from Post-growth Japan·Jun 1, 2021What I’m talking about when I talk about akiyaWelcome to life in capitalist ruins — This week’s post is a bit late because I was down in Onomichi for the past week, building Labyrinth House for the sixth time in as many months. I’m part of a small community that is completely rebuilding and transforming a decaying 1930s-era hillside house into a semi-public space where…Postgrowth9 min readPostgrowth9 min read
May 18, 2021Tokyo’s zombie Olympics march onThe games—and growth—must go on In the final months leading up to the rescheduled July 24 start of the Tokyo Olympics, the Japanese government’s heedless plan to welcome as many as 90,000 visitors from overseas is now slamming into a fourth wave of COVID-19. If people were not dying in…Olympics5 min readOlympics5 min read
Oct 6, 2020Can Japan’s maglev bullet train survive covid?The coronavirus upended few sectors as much as travel. Thus the announcement that ridership on Japan’s Tokaido Shinkansen was down 84%, and that its operator JR Central lost ¥83.6 billion (around $800 million) in the April-June quarter, down from a profit of ¥206.2 billion a year before, came as no…Shinkansen5 min readShinkansen5 min read
Published inDispatches from Post-growth Japan·Apr 5, 2020Member-onlyPandemic in a peaceful dazeI mostly passed the month of March at my windowsill in Tokyo, minding my plants and parsing the gap between the news pouring into my palm from abroad and the placid springtime city outside. Around the first of March, when Japan had 239 confirmed cases of COVID-19, I was receiving…Coronavirus7 min readCoronavirus7 min read
Published inDispatches from Post-growth Japan·Oct 5, 2019End of the line for the Shinkansen?Whenever you pass through a JR East train station in Tokyo, sleek images of the latest Shinkansen bullet trains can be found adorning platforms, stairwells, and concourses. The elongated jade snout of the arrow-like E5, its smaller, red cousin the E6, and the elegantly curved figure of the E7 appear…Japan8 min readJapan8 min read
Aug 22, 2019Castles and Capsules: Urbanism in America and JapanCompared to the view of the yawning interstate heading to the Denver airport, the window of my train as it wends through suburban Tokyo from the airport teems with life unfolding just a few feet away. High school friends and commuters clustered on platforms. …Japan4 min readJapan4 min read
Published inDispatches from Post-growth Japan·Dec 7, 2016The meaning of Ueno Station’s new phantom platformHow much distance separates platform 18 from platform 13.5? This question crossed my mind when I read an article about JR East’s announcement yesterday that it would construct a new “platform 13.5” at Ueno Station in Tokyo for the exclusive use of a luxury tourist train, beginning next spring. …Japan8 min readJapan8 min read
Aug 31, 2016The Olympics come to TokyoOn August 21, Tokyo’s newly-elected governor Yuriko Koike received the Olympic flag from Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes at a rainy closing ceremony in Rio’s Maracana Stadium. After months of international press coverage of Rio’s dire fiscal condition, Brazil’s political crisis, and the threat of Zika, raw sewage in…202015 min read202015 min read
Published inEncyclopedia of Post-growth Japan·Jun 3, 2016Daycare shortage | 待機児童“What the hell, Japan?” Don’t give me this crap about “a society where all citizens are dynamically engaged.” In February 2016, an outraged mother wrote an anonymous blog post that soon spread across social media, garnering 50,000 likes on Facebook. Yesterday we got a wonderful rejection from daycare. How the…Women4 min readWomen4 min read
Published inEncyclopedia of Post-growth Japan·May 30, 2016Population decline | 人口減少Japan is shrinking. The 2015 census results announced in February confirmed that the national population declined by nearly one million people in five years, “an unprecedented drop for a society not ravaged by war or other deadly crisis,” the New York Times reported. Population decline is the essential trend necessary…Japan5 min readJapan5 min read
