Now I won't pretend I'm a "purebred" Yamato blooded Japanese person or locally living foreigner, I'm an Australian dude who's been to Japan 7 times since I love the place and I love the historical and old places like temples, shrines etc.
I've always noticed how bizarrely bad looking Japanese cities are. Endless 60s, 70s, 80s matchboxes that are either brown, grey, black, or white. No fun, no excitement, no atom of tradition or design injected…
Greenery is also basically illegal in Tokyo apart from designated places like Meiji jingu and the imperial grounds etc… all local parks look like absolute jokes and for whatever reason they have dirt and gravel instead of nicely kept grass…
Don't even get me started on the soul crushing design of Japanese government buildings, schools, or just any administrative building… Man it's like you walk through those doors and your soul just leave your body instantly.
As an Australian, the "design" of these cities is just incomprehensible…
On the other hand, Japan has some of the most amazing designs in other places like shrines, temples, machiya in Kyoto and just such a beautiful aesthetic that I think is peak… The wilderness and nature in shikoku is also breathtaking and these biomes don't exist in Australia where we have basically brown bush and eucalyptus trees.
It's just so contrasting with all these blocks on blocks of grey apartment buildings and office hells.
Like, can Japan not afford paint? It's especially bizarre how depressing schools look.
Lol. Would like to hear what y'all think. Can anybody give a rundown as to why they are so ugly? The only other country that I can think of where it was originally a industrial and fishing shit hole turned into green metropolis is Singapore, and that mostly started with big man Lee Kuan Yews obsession with creating a green city, alongside his meriad of other foundational ideas.
by Afraid_Management332