LOOK CLOSER, my friend.

Trying to figure out the borders of ‘Old Kyoto’ and how they affect the modern city is problematic in that the neat rectangle of the Heian period didn’t last that long. By the Sengoku period, for example, the city was basically dumb-bell shaped, divided into north and south areas. So while the old roads remained, they weren’t always residential, nor was the urban space the same (even the palace has moved). Of course we can’t really use modern ‘city’ boundaries to tell anything, as you point out. And after this Heisei Great Amalgamation, things are even sillier (I believe Takayama is now the largest city in Japan – in terms of area…). This is originally because fairly early on in the Meiji period the central govt did away with counties as a unit of local administration, thereby centring rural affairs on the nearest urban area (city, town, or village).

And talking of ‘remote but within city limits’, one place I’ve been long intrigued by is the Ogasawara islands – far enough south (east) to see the Southern Cross, but technically part of Tokyo….

Sure, the N/S divide always existed. After all, the original southern border of Kyoto back in the Heian days was only slightly to the south of Kyoto station’s present day location. Hachi-jo runs directly through the location that the station sits on, so you only have Ku-jo as the only major road south of the station that was inside the original city wall (plus the road actually ALONG the wall.) While I don’t actually know when the southern part of the city, i.e. south of the original outline, became part of Kyoto, it feels to me like it’s never been well integrated into the city, and places like Fushimi, which is technically Kyoto City, feel as much like a different place as Ohara or Kurama-two small villages in the mountains north of the city, which are also technically within its borders.

As for Toji, try visiting it on the day of the monthly fleamarket-the 21st. It’s often so crowded you can barely walk. Of course, Toji is also only a 5-10 minute walk from Kyoto Station. But Toji was in fact built near the old southern city gate, so there really wouldn’t have been any temples farther south of there. I’m not even sure if there’s any temples of historical note between Toji and Uji City. Incidentally, there used to be a “Saiji” to go along with Toji, but it burned down long ago, and unlike most temples that burn down in Kyoto was never rebuilt- Actually, the gate also burned down…

Frankly, I’d say you’d have the same view. For two reasons (or more if I think of them): First, the destruction of homes does not mean the loss of property rights – one of the biggest headaches facing the Tokyo city government after the Kanto quake, when they wanted to remodel the destroyed parts, was getting the land. Also, the destruction of 1923 and 1945 were not the only times much of Edo-Tokyo was destroyed; each time it was rebuilt in the same style. These skyscrapers are the result not of urban destruction through fire, but through modernisation and wealth creation, and would have happened anyway. This is shown by looking at cities or areas that were not ravaged in the war – they too are full of skyscrapers etc. However there are areas in Tokyo that developed as they were large and empty – the Shinjuku skyscraper district, on the site of the old water treatment works, is a classic case: it would have been nigh impossible to build like that in downtown.

And actually it’s amazing how much of even Tokyo survived WW2: the bombing was concentrated in the shitamachi area, leaving the yamanote areas largely untouched. So we still have old Meiji houses and temples, the Diet building and the Tokyo National Museum and so on. Quite a ton of prewar architecture really.

Ace is bang on the nose with Asakusa, with the provisio that it was was always the “people’s playground”. In the Taisho period it really boomed, with a zoo, a yuuenchi, the famous “Asakusa 12-stories” building, and the Asakusa Rokku (as in 六区 not rock ‘n’ roll) area of cabarets and theatres and movie houses – still a mecca for such (I believe Beat Takeshi got his start there, for example). And hey, I’m, fair: sometimes Kerr DOES get it right. Sometimes…. (Of course he’d probably prefer everyone had to arrive in Kyoto via palanquin or foot….)

Roy: the street leading to the Sensouji is called Nakamise-doori (仲見世通り) and like most monzen-machi has long been a commercial area. I take your point about the difference in (some) shops, but I generally am only interested in the tacky stuff, so don’t go into over-expensive pot-shops. BTW, a recommended stop after seeing the Kiyomizu is to drop in at some of the namayatsuhashi shops (there’s a bog one near the top) and gorge on free samples – they’re always so crowded you can basically eat your fill…). You’re right about the NS divide, though I think it always existed to some extent. For example, just to take tourist sites, the magnificent Toji, with its tall pagoda and halls of imposing Mikkyou statues, is often far less crowded than frankly lesser temples to the north.

As much as I hate Kyoto tower and love the old buildings in the city, I actually think Kyoto Station is awesome. The design is so oddly fractured, baroque and alien looking in a completely illogical way that I just can’t help but appreciate it. I can not, however, see ANY way in which it reflects traditional Japanese architecture. However, from an urban planning perspective it has been kind of disastrous for the southern part of Kyoto. By cutting laterally through such a large swatch of the city, it has really separate the areas north and south of the station, and had a devastating effect on development to the immediate-mid range south, which looks decades behind the area just to the north. Now, while this means that some of the poorer communities in Kyoto have not been gentrified (including a Zainichi neighborhood kind of S/SE of the station), the area just looks neglected. For a perfect visual example, take the Takasegawa canal, which runs charmingly through the Kiyamachi nightlife district and actually continues far to the south of Kyoto Station, but once you get that far south it no longer has any water in it, and is filled with garbage.

So all of us are now doing Alex Kerr-ing huh?After all we’ve been ganged up him over reference on Otaku culture,now we are agreeing him over something!

Again I have to second with Jade on Asakusa.It’s charm is basically of simple town folk culture,not the sophisticated taste of artistocrat as you see plenty in Tokyo.I also must urge you that what you see in Asakusa is basically more of Taisyo and early Showa culture,not exactly Edo.

You know,when I took my in-laws from Mongolia to Roppongo hills top floor,and I thought Tokyo Tower looks nice with in among all these tasteless monolith of skyscrapers,Tokyo Tower is sooo Showa and that gives me a feeling of nostaligia.
And Kyoto Tower,Actually the design is better than TT.I even went up there with my in-laws in March when I visited Kyoto for the first time in my 7 years of life,Wasn’t bad actually.

Well, the Japanese just killed and raped people. The Americans were much more thorough in their destruction: they left NOTHING behind.

I was having a conversation with Curzon just the other day about a hillside near our office called “Shiomizaka,” which literally means something like “the hill for watching the tide.” There was a time when you could actually see Tokyo Bay from there. Now it’s surrounded by skyscrapers. I can’t help but wonder what might have been if the city hadn’t been leveled twice within twenty-five years, if all those single-story homes from the Edo era were left intact and had to be taken down one by one to make room for new development.

Don’t get me started on Kyoto Tower. I have never been up it, never will, and the only advantage of going up it is that it’s one place in Kyoto where you can’t see it…. And Kyoto Station? Kerr was on the money with his criticism of that vast grey stone monolithic monstrosity. Designed by the HOD Architecture at Kyodai, and supposed to be based on or inspired by or reflect or whatever traditional Japanese architecture? You gotta me kidding me. As one prof I know pointed out when we we passed through it, it looks like nothing so much as the battleship Yamato (from the tracks side). And yes, the Eiffel Tower is preferable to Tokyo Tower….

Funny, the shops selling tacky crap are one of my favourite aspects of Sensouji – I like the steep street (Pottery Lane or something) leading to the Kiyomizudera for the same reason. Tokyo certainly has tourist attractions, but most are postwar, or famous not so much for their looks as what they are. I certainly agree that as a temple, the Sensouji is nothing compared to what can be found in other cities, esp Kyoto and Nara, but for Tokyo, and taken together with its neighbourhood, it’s probably one of the premier Edo-period ones there. However I suspect the single biggest tourist attraction of Tokyo is neither ‘Japanese’ or in Tokyo: Chiba (uh, Tokyo) Disneyland….