Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@NEStalgia It must be awful to feel so miserable.

@NEStalgia I don't think you have to start from zero. Clever designing around existing infrastructure can save a lot. But yes, it takes a lot of effort. However, the thing is, my country wasn't much different 70 years ago when they were preparing for a car-centric world. The government took measures against it and has been rebuilding the country ever since. Even to this day roads are rebuild to make it more pedestrian or bicycle friendly. You can't change it overnight, but I think that if the US started today, it would be vastly improved 20 or 30 years from now. The same happened to public transport, because AFAIK that's also non-existent in North America.

It looks like the solution has been to build more roads to encourage car traffic, but that's not right solution I think. If alternative transport isn't promoted and allowed for, the problem is only going to get worse. One observed paradox is that the average commute time by car between two places is just as fast as the same journey by public transport (the Downs–Thomson paradox). And there's quite a good reasoning behind it. Braess's paradox is another observation that more lanes, or roads will also slow traffic down. Even though it seems to be the easiest solution to manage traffic. But then again, if the buses are stuck in traffic as well, it's not really a good alternative. And it requires a change in mindset as well.

More commercial opportunities in residential reduce commute time. This opens up the opportunity for alternative transport, like walking or bicycling. Buses, trams, and trains are great for longer distances. But such infrastructure must be supported first, then used by the general public because they are faster, and as a result car traffic will slow down, and the car will be a viable alternative for when there is no other option. But it's going to be difficult to convince people that think their car means freedom. Being stuck in traffic with no option isn't freedom however.

By the way, if you can see the supermarket, how far away is it really? Is going by foot or bike an option? Though I guess you'd spend the same amount of time waiting at the traffic lights, so it's probably not really an option.

@Octane Yeah, they make "new urbanism" claims about more pedestiran friendly, bycicles etc. But the problem is, when they build that what they do is build new construction enclaves, targeted very specifically at the 6-figure earners. It's always luxury apartment blocks on top of the restaurant and shopping hub/nightlife, and access to airports for the frequent jet setters, etc. Then they actually make things worse and MORE distant/difficult for everyone who isn't the 6-figure earners, because now the places you go or go through have been densified with high concentrations of wealthy population in this "urban luxury terrarium" - so the more they do that, and make it a sign of exclusivity, the worse things get for most people. Generally everything gets continuously worse at all times, except for this new wave jet setter, no-roots, urbanist cult. They can bike and walk to Whole Foods and get their Organic food, and experience the finest in dining all within biking distance. And everyone else gets to wait an EXTRA 15 minutes to go get their microwave at Walmart because of it. As always "better" always means "for someone else, at your expense."

Agreed with all the paradox theories. They keep making the old 2 lane roads into REALLY REALLY NARRROW 3-5 lane roads. And it just bottlenecks more and gets even more miserable. The other problem is alternate transport is generally associated with poverty-level population....and who wants to ride every day with the dregs of society when you could get in your climate controlled SUV by yourself, pre-heated to the right temperature right at your door, to your destination. Convincing anyone that can afford that to give it up isn't going to happen, and anyone that can't afford it doesn't really get a say - they're not the economy. But the fact that the average bus will be filled with used diapers, trash, needles, bottles, and generally very "undesirable" people....its not going to convince a change.

Here we don't have a lot of problem with commercial opportunities in residential areas....it's not a regulatory problem but a practical one. Sure, there are some communities that ARE anti-business....I have a neighboring one. They allow nothing commercial at all beyond professional (medical offices etc.) But generally that's not the problem. The office land developers like concentrating land all in one giant campus for the region. The retail land developers (and chains) like concentrating land all in one giant campus for the region. It's cost effective for them. Real estate tends to be much cheaper as well...and far more square footage for the store and the parking lot is available.

There's the saga of Kmart versus Walmart. Kmart has been on the brink of failure for a decade and has closed most of their stores in the past few years. Walmart thrives. They were founded in the same YEAR in the 1960's (as was Target.)

One of Kmart's biggest liabilities (beyond bad management) was their footprint. They had MANY mid-sized stores in generally residential areas which meant expensive real estate and a spread footprint. Walmart had relatively few stores that are humongous, generally far from where anyone actually lives and people had to travel to them. Kmart ended up spreading inventory to many locations with high logistics costs, and paying high premium for real estate in populated areas. Walmart could concentrate their logistics to few warehouse-stores in big empty areas with cheap real estate on land they bought on the cheap when it was rural nowhere land.

Guess who became one of Earth's most profitable companies, and one is on the virge of collapse at any moment and has been for a decade?

Who would open a mid size store at premium real estate and compete with Amazart with spread logistics? Nobody. You can't compete. So the land earmarked for commercial in residential areas sits abandoned for years and finally the land owners convince the government to rezone it to residential so they can build another 500 apartments on the empty land and make money. It gets approved. Now you have 500 MORE people with LESS local stores, and all of them have to head to the SAME shopping area, generally at the same peak times, feeding the problem more, permanently removing more of the limited commercial real estate, driving up the land values even more, and increasing the back and forth traffic even more.

Same with office parks. They build a big new office park where "too much retail was" - now the commuters come from the surroudning areas every day and clog it more!

@Sunsy Oh that's good. There's a nice feature in Mario Party 4 that lets you make a custom list of what minigames will appear while you're playing in the boards. So if there's any minigames that you don't like, you can just not add them. Kinda surprised that feature didn't come back in the later games - I don't particularly enjoy minigames where all you do is rapidly tap A. MP4 has some really good minigames, by the way! Booksquirm and Toad's Quick Draw are just a few of my favorites.

I have Sonic Generations on PC as well, that's definitely the best version of the game. I originally played it on PS3. I used to have an Xbox 360, but it got the dreaded red ring of death and there weren't that much games I was really into. A lot of well-known 360 games were shooters, I did play a few but I never got into them. Always liked Nintendo's games the best.

@NEStalgia Expecting people to read all that is pretty cray-cray 😜

@NEStalgia I think I agree, but I also think you're not looking at the root of the problem. Expensive real estate for commercial buildings in residential areas is a problem the local and/or national government should be looking at. This point to a structural problem. But it's not an unsolvable problem.

And yes, public transport like buses are indeed stigmatised when it's 1) not more efficient than a car, 2) generally looked down upon, because only poor people use it who don't have the means to drive, and 3) isn't properly maintained, on all levels. And you need to tackle all of those problems at once to change the situation. When I look at the buses over here, they are generally new buses that look good, and cleaned regularly (I don't really recall any littering). Everyone uses them, from all classes of society, so there's no stigma. And dedicated bus lanes and smart traffic lights, that prioritise buses, make it so that it's often faster than going by car (definitely in the city).

@NEStalgia Another thing that lead to Kmart's troubles was that they were to interested in buying other business up rather then updating their own stores. Places like Sports Authority, Venture and Borders Books. Alot of their stores it was stepping into a time machine from the 80s to mid 90s cause they were so out of date. I kid you not there registers were PCs from the 80s and we're that mucky green screen and their receipt printers still used dot matrix. Alot of people said that Kmart employees are registers were slow compared to Walmart and Target and really that was no fault of there own it was their equipment.

@Octane Oh and as to the previous question, the walking/biking time to the store, unfortunately means having to wind through the same roads (which would be much slower than car by the residential roads, but that part is doable and I have done it over the years) - but there used to be a shortcut (which honestly shouldn't have been there, it amounted to pseudo tresspassing in someone's yard, but officially sanctioned, which was weird, but then the commercial property on the other side put up a fence....which probably isn't the wrong thing to have done, but it made the walking route about double the length because you have to walk all the way to the end of the residential area, to a different side street on the other side of a different intersection.)

But when you get out there, yeah, then you have to cross the convenience store/gas station traffic (which is ever flowing) through a big intersection that DOES have a pedestrian crossing, but it's actually worse, because to cross the bigger road you have to wait for one light to use the crossing across the first road (to the wrong side of it!), Then wait another 3 traffic lights to cross the bigger road. Then wait another several lights to cross the smaller road again back to the side you started on. (Not that it's much better in the cars, because whenever a pedestrian crosses and activates the crossing you have to wait for a whole other cycle of lights because then the bigger road gets priority again from the beginning.....you can wait for 12 minutes at the intersection if you get 2 lights AND a pedestrian is crossing. If you're a pedestrian you have to wait probably 12 minutes standing there between crossing all 3 sides (or more.)

So the more practical solution is to jaywalk across the busy road on which everyone speeds like a maniac and run like h--l across the 4.5 lanes. Doesn't work well with groceries though. And it's one of those heart pounding moments you try not to relive TOO often. You can go the back route and cross on the less busy street too, it's safer (not safe, but safer, and less illegal since there's no real crossing there), bu then you pop up in the back of the parking lot and you have another 5 minute walk (and 5 back) just through the parkinglot and shopping center alone. So by car it's going to be 45 min round trip, by walking probably 60 minutes round trip with a mix of standing and waiting for crossings, and going in the wrong direction because of the particular layout of the streets (that can't be fixed without tearing thorugh people's homes, which is also wrong, and when those homes were there, we didn't have all this congestion, it ws everything built AFTER that that created the problem, and solving the problems caused by people that have been there 20 years shouldn't come at the expense of "fixing" it by harming people that have been there 50 years because they're now a minority in comparison.

There's no good fix without thoroughly screwing people - and usually the screwing means me. They'll never screw the people that arrived in recent times and caused the problem because that's the wealthier set they courted to begin with.

And , yeah, expensive real estate for commercial is absolutely a problem. Commercial real estate is a bubble that makes the 2008 crisis look like a slump. Real estate in general is once again a giant bubble. The cost of rent/real estate is absurd. It's also the reason the malls are pretty much all closing. They leveraged them out in the 90's at "how's high is high" economy prices. They can't drop rent. The land owners leveraged out on the potential value of the properties. If they lower rent that means they reduce the potential value on paper, which means the banks will come collecting on debts they can't repay.

But it's 2-fold. If we're talking "commercial building" keep in mind that invariably becomes just medical, office, restaurant/entertainment, gyms, industrial/warehousing etc. Talking retail is silly. Retail is dead. No small retailer exists and can compete with the giants, and no giant retailer is going to build small stores in prime real estate, not just due to the real estate cost, but the lack of large space to build large stores, to streamline their logistics fully. Local shopping is expensive and has to be priced expensive...which just raises the cost of living further.

But even that is the old problem. The new problem is as a result of 20 years of that, all land located near the residential areas has been built up with non-retail. Every square inch was bulldozed to build endless housing complexes and office parks. What was once shopping centers then were gutted by the 2008 crisis and then online shopping, sat empty (at high rents) for years, and then they tear them down and repurpose them as mixed use new urbanist complexes (luxury apartments, dining/entertainment, office space, and some shopping which almost always means cell phone stores, premium hair salons, and some restaurants - all in a walkable complex. If you can afford a luxury apartment - where the advertising clearly states in so many words its geared toward "high earning millennials.") - And they call that "affordable housing" compared to the quarter million dollar tiny homes that used to cost about what a car costs now....

Ultimately once they built endless office and residential where commercial retail used to be or could have gone, it can't ever be anything but that ever again. And retail is focused on only the largest, most centralized stores. They focused on "regional shopping" rather than local shopping....because it's much more efficient. Unfortunately where I am, I'm smack dab between 3 of those "regional" shopping areas. It's equidistant to all of them, at least by time vs distance. So to me, Amazon is basically the only store other than grocery.

That said, over here despite the "densification" that makes life miserable, it's never (ever) going to be profitable to run public transportation in a way that actually reaches everyone. Everything is too far apart. And any attempt to "densify" it generally also means an attempt to "gentrify" it, which pushes the regular people ever farther out, which leads to developing the rural areas ever more rapidly, which means they have even longer commutes on longer treks on longer highways just to function in work and live in an affordable place........and the Walmart with grocery is always 15 miles away.....

I'm thinking the only really practical solution is fast tracking automated cars (and associated automated roads) and creating a large uber-like rental system with a centrally guided "railroad of cars." Normal public transit can't work with the layout here. "Fixing" the layout generally requires what amounts to forced relocation, either by pricing people out and gentrifying areas, or at the barrel of a gun....I don't doubt they'd try that at all, but it's not an ethical solution in any way. The only way to "fix" it without screwing over anyone not rich enough to be the gentry is to bandaid around it....and the only way I see that is a hybrid car-public transportation that amounts to automated, renta-rides. The problem with THAT, is the freedom-loving mask-hating public wouldn't go for it even if it was a bargain. Maybe include a Switch in the seat to occupy them. Everyone loves ACNH, right?

@Tasuki Oh yeah, there's an entire case study to be had with Kmart. It was a lot of problems and a lot of management problems. Keep in mind into the 90's they were Walmart. They were king. And their management was so overconfident in their near monopoly they invested in all of those other stores instead of their own, absolutely. They missed Walmart sneaking up and considered that a "rural" store. Which it was...at first.

They also had a legacy distribution system of merchandise distributors fulfilling stores, while Walmart focused primarily as a logistics company instead of a retailer. (Amazon before Amazon.)

Plus while Walmart was buying cheap land in the boonies, Kmart was renting at premium neighborhood prices.

All that being said, they really failed, what, 15+ years ago. When they went bankrupt under the Enron-type embezzling scandal under the prior CEO (who is the same guy who put CVS on every single street corner in the country.....), Eddie Lampert bought the whole thing basically for peanuts. The "real" Kmart was gone by that point. Eddie's just been floating it along for whatever real estate games he's playing, leveraged what funds Kmart had out to buy Sears - which had no reason to do so, except it fit into his real estate hedge scheme. And then idiotically sunk all the money into keeping a dead Sears floating instead of funneling it into Kmart, at a time when Kmart could have really rebounded into one of the big stores. And Sears, that was Amazon 100 years before Bezos was born somehow never brought their catalog online until far too late. Everyone credits Amazon with the everything-by delivery system. Everyone seems to miss that Sears was already doing what Amazon does back during the Red Dead Redemption era.....

Shame, it's still a brand that could and should be properly saved. But it's too late for the real estate. Most of it is residential, offices, or various professional services now. Nobody will be shopping that close to home ever again.

But that real estate problem and the cost was a serious problem. They'd have to charge 10% more in general just to offset their real estate difference with stores like Walmart, both due to real estate cost and due to and their spread logistics with more small stores than few big stores. And in the Amazon era, whoever charges 10% more can't compete.

@NEStalgia I appreciate reading it. I guess I'm a bit more optimistic than you are. I think it's possible, it's just going to take a long time. But none of this sounds efficient at all. And I've seen images of the American suburbs, long winding roads with housing as far as the eye can see. You don't get those kinds of neighbourhoods over here. The whole neighbourhood is always within walking distance (<5 minutes). And there's always at least one bus stop, but there's usually a bus stop within walking distance. In rural areas it can be worse, but that's expected I guess.

But yeah, it all comes to urban planning. Our houses aren't that big. We can't, there isn't even enough space. Most people have a front and back yard, but are usually terraced houses, or semi-detached houses. And multiple floors as well, because you don't want to waste that precious land area. City centres are mostly apartments, except for the small and older rural towns, most still have the old houses that date back to the Middle Ages. But generally people have to be a lot more efficient with space, which makes transport also relatively easy. According to Wikipedia the population density is almost twenty times higher than in the US.

I just found out someone is making a Megaman Legends inspired game, which is awesome. Or maybe I heard about it before, there are honestly so many smaller games I hear about that I can't possibly remember them all. But its called Delta-Gal and it looks like a legit throwback to that era of gaming, and I'm excited.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember Red Ash? That was supposed to be a thing and then it never existed.

@Zuljaras Okay that was strange, I clicked reply on your comment and it took me back to the main page.

Anyway, you're absolutely right I love Japan beyond anywhere else in the world by a huge margin. And that would be the absolute best gift ever.

@RR529 It's not been the easiest...

And I agree with you. That wearing a mask being seen as political is ridiculous. My family is quite divided over the topic. No one thankfully is in full hoax mode, but my mother and 2 of my aunts both think it's being deliberately distorted and exaggerated just to destroy Trump and that the whole dang world is in on it. I find it is because so many people here never go abroad, they don't want to. They see it all as an "us vs them" where us is apparently American Trump supporters and them is everyone else on Earth united against them. Who cares how little sense that makes. And they say the same thing, that once the election is over, everything will apparently just fade away. Well, the families of 175k people in this country so far, can't go back to normal. But, many people claim that the numbers, data, evidence, witness testimony, videos, etc etc are all fabricated. Everything they don't like is just fake and everyone who believes it is in on the conspiracy...

@NEStalgia So I totally see your point about the cost of housing. But I do want to mention that even if houses still costed as low as you describe, I would not want yard or need a full size home to myself. And I don't mean micro apartments. I wasn't talking about those things you sometimes see on TV shows or on a social media feed. Apartments of the style I lived in in Japan are common everywhere in the country, from hyper dense Tokyo, to super rural Shiga where I lived. It's a standardized design, I used to see "my" building all over the place. Each person has one larger main room that was both my bed and living room, with the other half of the space divided among kitchen, toilet room and bathroom/utility room. I had all I needed and a comfortable amount of space in a very practical and compact form for prices you couldn't rent a broom closet for here. It's a design specifically meant either for single people, or for business folks with an excessively long commute who only actually go home on weekends. (That's related to old Japanese families who've own land since before the rebels kicked the red coats back to England, not wanting to give up their family homes)

Anyway, you're right. I have seen your comments on here before more than a few times. I was in a bad place last night so my head wasn't on entirely straight. We do seem to be mostly on the same page. I wouldn't trade my time in Japan for anything. But looking at things from a different perspective, I'd not be having this problem if I were a typical 2020 American and raised like apparently most people here were.

You mentioned being raised in a manner more compatible with Japan, and I definitely was. One very visual example is how many Americans have no qualms with wearing shoes indoors. But I only learned that was the norm here when I was in high school and started visiting more people. In Japan, people even take their shoes off indoors at schools and at work and switch to either a clean pair of indoor shoes or slippers. In a way stuff like this actually made it harder to do my job as an ALT because I'm a very very poor representation of American culture today.

@Octane Well because of the pandemic it will likely be months or perhaps even years before I even could return to Japan even if I had the means and a job lined up. I was warned before I left that, because of the pandemic, people from America are on the no entry list to Japan right now and you have to jump through a ton of hoops to get an exception.

And yes, the infrastructure is totally different. I lived in, what Japanese people considered to be an extremely rural area. I still walked to and from the grocery store. I'd occasionally get comments from people along the lines of "Wow, you have to walk 15 minutes just to buy food?!" and I'd laugh and point out that everywhere I had lived in the US, the closest grocery store would be at best, a 15 minute drive. Currently, it's 20 minutes now. And you're right about needing to turn homes into virtual warehouses. Like I mentioned in the other comment, there just aren't small homes or apartments here. This 4 bedroom 2 bath, 2 living room, full kitchen/dining room and big 2 car garage is a "small" home by local standards, and we're sharing it with 6 adults and my cousin's kid who is here enough that he thinks it's more his home than his parent's house. Because of that, we have 2 big refrigerators and an additional full size freezer to store enough food to avoid having to go shopping every other day.

@WoomyNNYes You say "legal bribery" a lot more politely than I do. But you're not wrong. And yes, I think Japan's culture is largely driven by their island nation's limited natural resources, but also the impact of WW2. America was never invaded, not the mainland. The last major war on America soil was the civil war. so no one alive and none of our parents or grandparents have ever seen our cities destroyed, our infrastructure flattened etc etc. But both Japan and Europe have and I don't think it's just a coincidence that both of them have a greater cultural value on the good of society and things like public transportation and other services. Because they remember at a cultural level at least, what it's like when it collapses, and how hard rebuilding is.

I don't begrudge people who enjoy large cars. My dad was a car fanatic, I know for some people it's a hobby. But I don't understand why so many people have to have these huge trucks and SUVs for everyday driving. What really baffles me is the lack of mix. While yes, I often talked about how weird it was that like 80% of cars in Japan are black, white or grey/silver, and America has most of the spectrum, most people still have just these huge cars and trucks everywhere you look. There's not the mixture that would make sense in my head. Sure he has a Toyota, she has a GMC and he has a Ford, but they're all big hulking 4x4 V8 heavy duty pick up trucks and none of them have jobs even remotely requiring a machine like that. I don't get it. It's so lopsided that I heard Ford has stopped selling most smaller cars entirely, choosing instead to focus on big trucks, SUVs and sports cars.

@Apportal I don't quite know if important is the word I would use. But I appreciate you reading it. I shared it here because I wanted the perspective of outsiders from my situation. I feel as though if I were to talk about this issue with my friends or family here, it would just come off as an ungrateful complaint fest, and if I talk about it with my friends back in Japan I'd just make them feel bad or uncomfortable because I know they'd want to help me but I know there's really nothing they could do. And none of them wanted me to leave.

I didn't either. But my contract was set and my position wasn't just not getting renewed, no one was getting it after me. I was in a very rural area that people were moving away from, to go to the city, less people, less students, less taxes, less need for English teachers. Everyone I worked directly with said they wanted me to stay, but it wasn't our choice, it was people 3 or 4 steps removed from the school, up the food chain for whom, we were just expenses on paper. Everything bows to bureaucracy...

@kkslider5552000 That looks pretty good. Seems very early in development though.

I completely forgot Red Ash used to be a thing. Didn't he also announce another project as well? A animated series? I don't know. I only remember a lot of promises.

Wasn’t Red Ash the animated series?

About big trucks in Arizona, I've noticed most of my family there have large vehicles as well, so I guess it's a bit of a "culture" thing. They do purchase stuff in large quantities when they go shopping though, and with their hunting/camping/daily activities, the space is often used.

@Heavyarms55 The bigger the house, the more money you waste on stuff you don't need I think. I have a small studio at the moment. I wouldn't upgrading it to something bigger with a garden to grow my own herbs and vegetables, but I don't need mansion.

@Eel I guess it was both?

@Anti-Matter FYI, we have a Animal Crossing thread where people may be more interested in your Animal Crossing screenshots.

I like collecting Nintendo stuffed animals and putting them on my shelf. Call me girly, but I think it looks nice. Does anyone else like to collect something and display?

@NEStalgia Oh yeah I remember being a kid in the 80s for my family we shopped their at least once a week. Back to school stuff it was Kmart we went to. NES games Kmart, CDs Kmart, New clothes Kmart, fishing license Kmart. Tires for the car Kmart, you get the idea. Even when a Walmart opened in our town my Mom still went to Kmart. It wasn't untill they shut down our Kmart a few years ago that then my Mom had no choice but to shop at Walmart.

@Apportal skylanders and LEGO Minifigures. Don’t display them much recently but I still have a ridiculous amount of each.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, I don't have a problem with people wanting bigger cars, or fast cars. I totally understand why they sell. I was a car nut for a while myself. Miss my last ride - german, peppy, all-wheel drive.. and silver

@Eel Yeah, big cars still sell, even when they're gas guzzlers. They are handy. Although when gas prices get high, suv sales take a dive.