The Magic of Tokyo (with Joe McReynolds)

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🗓️ 13 October 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

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Summary

What drives the seeming relentless dynamism of Tokyo? Is there something special about Japanese culture? Joe McReynolds, co-author of Emergent Tokyo, argues that the secret to Tokyo's energy and attractiveness as a place to live and visit comes from policies that allow Tokyo to emerge from the bottom up. Post-war black markets evolved into today's yokocho--dense clusters of micro-venues that turn over, specialize, and innovate nightly--while vertical zakkyo buildings stack dozens of tiny bars, eateries, and shops floor by floor, pulling street life upward. The engine? Friction-light rules: permissive mixed-use zoning, minimal licensing, and no minimum unit sizes let entrepreneurs launch fast and pivot faster. And surrounding this emergent urban landscape there's plenty of new housing with excellent transportation infrastructure to let ever-more people enjoy Tokyo's magic.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econTalk.org.
0:30.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.7	Today is September 16, 2025, and my guest is Joe McReynolds of Keo University, co-author
0:42.8	with Jorge Almazon of the book, Emergent Tokyo, Designing the Spontaneous City,
0:50.0	which is our topic for today.
0:51.8	Joe, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:53.9	Thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate, Russ.
0:56.1	Well, first of all, it's a beautiful book physically. It tries to capture with words and
1:01.6	really lovely graphics. What is distinctive about Tokyo and its vitality, and I've never
1:10.7	been to Tokyo. I've seen a lot of footage, video footage in Tokyo,
1:14.7	but as I read the book, I found myself going over to YouTube and checking out clips of various
1:20.2	phenomena that you write about in the book, and we'll put some links up to some of those
1:24.2	so that those like myself who haven't been there can get it for what we're talking about.
1:29.1	But I want to start with the overarching philosophy of the book, which will be familiar to e-contactant listeners.
1:34.7	You call the book Emergent Tokyo. Why? What does Emergent mean to in that context?
1:42.4	So we decided to talk about emergent systems as a way of understanding Tokyo.
1:52.0	Because to give your listeners a little bit of context, in the discussions around Tokyo over
1:59.0	decades, you know, going back to the 70s, 80s, Western media, you name it.
	...

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