Learning from the Japanese City (Studies in History, Planning and the Environment Series)

Rating:
Summary: Lucid insights into the Japanese Mind
Review: A magical book ... that opens your eyes to the dual - complexity and simplicity - that lies within the heart of both Japanese Culture and the Japanese City

Rating:
Summary: Very little to be learned here.
Review: This is the only time I have ever written a review for Amazon.com, and I freely admit it is out of annoyance at the high price I paid for this book. Shelton has very little to say, and he says it badly. His "research" seems to have been no more than anecdotes from his own observations during wanderings of Japanese cities, and skimming through books by other people who did real research. There is almost no analysis of the reasons for Japanese urban form, and no convincing explanation of what may be "learned". Examples: he notes the strange juxtapositions and visual incoherence, but gives no information about the zoning and subdivision laws that allow this. He notes that many small buildings have exterior staircases as their street facade, but does not research the fire code laws that encourage this. Above all, he seems to assume that the ostensibly random results must be the result of random processes, and so ignores the importance of big business interests, and especially private railway companies, in the shaping of Japanese cities.

The photos are poorly reproduced and the diagrams (Shelton's own?) are laughably crude. He seems to consider every Japanese city to be generically interchangeable, and he caricatures Western architecture and urban traditions perhaps more than those of Japan.

If this is not intended as academic research but as quirky anecdotes/opinions along the lines of Alex Kerr or Peter Popham, fine, but in that case Shelton's awkward prose is not worth the effort to read.

In short, the only valuable information that Shelton provides is quoted or from sources that include: Ashihara's "The Hidden Order", Barthes "Empire of Signs", Jinnai's "Tokyo: a Spatial Anthropology", various texts by Bognar, and Popham's "Tokyo: the City at the End of the World". All of these books are highly recommended, along with Sorensen's "The Making of Urban Japan" and Atelier Bow Wow's "Made in Tokyo Guidebook". I promise I am not the author of any of the books I am praising (although I wonder if the same could be said about the other review on this page). This is definitely a low point in Routledge's usually high quality output. Don't waste your money.