low-rise density, or, yards are expensive

[mindstalk]

Follow-up to Osaka house size and Urban density.

So, buildings here tend to fill their lots and not have yards. They're certainly *allowed* to have setbacks and yards, unlike the draconian land-use and FAR (floor area ratio) regulations of the US, but through much of Osaka they don't. (There are yards in Japan, I've seen them in Nara and Kyoto away from the city centers, in Kyoto not even that far from a train station, in Nara not far from a bus running every 4 minutes.)

Imagine that every lot is 1000 square feet, which allows for a quite ample two-story house, even with a parking space or two (say 200 square feet per space[1]), and/or a strip for plants. Imagine that half the urban land is devoted to such residential lots (after streets and non-residential uses.) That allows for 5381 houses per square kilometer. Assuming an average of 2 people per household (2.55 seems a more accurate 2010 number for Japan) that's nearly 11,000 people per square kilometer -- considerably denser than San Francisco or Somerville (both around 7,000) or anywhere else in the US outside NYC. At 2.5 people per house that's 13,500 people per square kilometer, on the order of Bronx and Brooklyn. Without needing a single home taller than 2 stories, and giving 1000-2000 square feet per home (unless you build a one story home with two parking spaces, and then you're just asking for it.)

It certainly can be nice to have your own yard. But US yard are big enough for second homes. We shouldn't be *requiring* them.

(Note: Osaka overall doesn't look like this, there are many tall buildings. Parts of it and I think Tokyo do look like it, though. And it's an interesting exercise. And my current lot is probably more like 200 square feet.)

[1] Interesting effect of most of the streets being one-lane alleys shared by all modes: no sidewalk, so no curb cut effect from having a driveway.

Parking lots and garages in the US need at least 330 square feet per car because of access lanes, but curbside spaces or house parking that opens directly to the street are different. Hmm, actually the space use of driveways should include the curb cut and denied parking space as well as the car space on the private lot, but again not an issue when there is no curb or street parking.

Comments

[elusiveat]

To what extent is there public green space?

I've never been to Japan, but ~25 years ago I heard that one of the defining characteristics of Japanese gardens is fitting a lot into a small space, which was attributed to the lack of land availability. Does this reflect your experiences in the cities?

In the U.S., my intuition is that things like rooftop gardens and balcony plantings to soften the experience of living at very high densities.

[mindstalk]

> To what extent is there public green space?

Google Maps or Earth might be more accurate than my own impressions. :) But: there are lots of parks, ranging from huge to tiny. Also playgrounds that are not particularly green. I don't know whether there's a place within five minutes of any particular spot, though I'd bet my odds are much better than in LA. A lot of shrines and temples are also like tiny parks and may or may not have greenery. Some are just buildings and gravel, but Horikoshi shrine hosted a fair number of plants.

Street trees: variable, tending to rare. Most of the streets don't have room for them, being alleys by US standards! Those often do have visible greenery though, from people putting potted plants along the side of their buildings; you can go down the right street and feel pretty lush even though nothing's planted in what passes for the ground.

> one of the defining characteristics of Japanese gardens is fitting a lot into a small space

Hmm, dunno, that hasn't specifically struck me. The tiny yards I do get glimpses of do seem to make efficient use of the space, but I could say the same of my friend in Glendale who rents a townhouse with a tiny yard, and when she told me what she'd planted I couldn't find room for all that in my mental imagery. Many larger parks are shameless about being a bunch of grass and trees like anywhere else, so it's not like they have a habit of scaling up efficiency into a mid-size botanical garden.

Though that reminds me that I occasionally see completely random tree labels. One memory is of in a shrine, I think Horikoshi, another is just outside a green-less playground in Nara. Like random attacks by a mad botanist.

I sometimes get glimpses of balcony plantings too. Not sure about rooftop. Though the house right next to me has multiple levels, from fishtanks and plants at ground level to stuff above and maybe on the roof. This is the one that makes it hard to sleep properly because I hear watering and dripping at 11 PM and 6 AM...

[elusiveat]

Cool. Thanks for all this!