Tokyo is my favorite place in the world but this is of course a subjective opinion. Everyone enjoys different things and different places. What I would like to do in this post is talk about a few things regarding Tokyo that are relatively objective and that I believe set Tokyo apart from in several ways from most other places in the world. This is not going to be a list of "cool" things to do like a lot of pop culture articles on various cities that claim they are the "best". It is a look at a few variables that all cities have and how they work together in a way and on a scale that makes Tokyo unique compared to most. The factors being: size, accessibility and safety.
1. Size. Tokyo is the largest metropolis on earth by a massive margin. The latest UN estimates puts the city at around 38 million people. Notice I didn't say city proper as this is a useless metric for defining most large cities (or even many small ones) as it is nothing more than legal boundaries on a map. When speaking of metro area we are talking about continuous urban density.
So what positive benefit do you get with being the largest metropolis? Access to nearly everything you can imagine at lease in one shape or other. If it is practical to exist within a city landscape there is a very good chance Tokyo has at least one version of it, if not hundreds or even thousands.
But having nearly everything doesn't necessarily make a place great without....
2. Accessibility. Tokyo is one of the most accessible and convenient place I've ever experienced. In fact it is more convenient than cities 1/100th of it's size.
In a large number of cities the trade off of having relatively close access to a lot of things is dealing with the nightmare of trans-versing your city to get to them all. It is interesting that being back in the states I find myself dreading city travel to do things even when the city I'm in at the time might only consist of a few hundred thousand residents. This was a feeling that I almost never experienced in Tokyo and it is due to a combination of train centric transportation and a city that was allowed to develop with relatively little zoning.
The lax zoning is the first thing that a western needs to understand and will probably notice upon arriving in Tokyo. In Tokyo there is no downtown. In fact there is no real center to anything and instead tons of different "centers" scattered all across the metropolis. The reason for this is that city planners didn't block off huge areas of the metropolis with strict zoning to force building types and business that they desired at the time. Relatively speaking businesses and residences were able to pop up where they thought it was most viable from a market standpoint.
Now think about what happens when you have lax zoning and the world's largest rail network. Suddenly all of the major hub stations across the metropolis become the prime spots to locate business and combine that with little zoning and it means any business that is viable to serve the people of Tokyo ends up being within just a few minute walk at most from almost every major train station.
The result that occurs is amazing. I would wager to say that the vast majority of the population of Tokyo is less than a 15 minute train ride from one of the relatively major hub stations littered across the metropolis, if they don't already live at one, meaning you are always just minutes away from having everything at your finger tips.
Now some people might not really understand the scale of convenience that I'm talking about so let me list off some of the things that were found in less than at 10 minute walk from my nearest "hub" station just a few minutes away: More than a thousand restaurants, well over a thousand bars, at least 3 movie theater complexes, hundreds of men and women clothing stores, dozens of mega houseware stores, a dozen computer stores, specialty camera shops, bowling alleys, indoor golf ranges, every cell phone provider, every bank of note, handful of arcades, hundreds of karaoke spots, music clubs, a dozen or more super markets, strip clubs, hostess bars, etc.
All of it, together in one spot, just minutes walk from each other. A degree of the above is typical at major stations across Tokyo.
And the last thing wraps it all up...
3. Safety. Basically all data from any source that has studied it agrees that Tokyo is one of the safest places in the world....and even safer in terms of violent crimes toward tourists. Not that you shouldn't always be mindful of your surroundings but Tokyo really is unbelievably safe at all hours of the night. In fact the most "dangerous" parts of Tokyo have crime rates that would make them safer than the "safe" parts of many U.S. cities.
So in summary Tokyo is larger than any other place which means it has nearly everything, has an incredible combination of lax zoning and a large rail network that makes in unbelievably easy to access all that it has, and thanks to the safety you can enjoy it all at any time day or night.
The best? That's up to you but there is no doubt Tokyo has a combination of at least a few factors that is difficult to match.
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