TOKYO: Earth's Model MEGACITY

Tokyo is the most successful metropolis in the history of the world with 39 million residents, 50% more people than any other urban area. It is the safest big city on the planet and has a two trillion dollar GDP--an economy larger than all but eight entire countries.

Road diets: designing a safer street

Over the course of the 20th century, the car became America’s dominant mode of transportation. As vehicle miles travelled soared well past the rate of population growth, demands on the roadway surged. Congestion became a major issue. So transportation planners made the roads wider and added traffic lanes. Today, we now know that bigger roads and extra traffic lanes do nothing to solve congestion. In fact, it tends to induce even more traffic. So we didn’t fix the congestion issues, and on top of that, we built wide roads that are relatively unsafe.

Why cities are full of uncomfortable benches

When designing urban spaces, city planners have many competing interests to balance. After all, cities are some of the most diverse places on the planet. They need to be built for a variety of needs. In recent years, these competing interests have surfaced conflict over an unlikely interest: purposefully uncomfortable benches. Enter the New York City MTA. They’ve installed 'leaning bars’ to supplement traditional benches & save platform space. But designs like this carry an often invisible cost: they rob citizens of hospitable public space. And the people who experience this cost most directly are those experiencing homelessness.