>It’s not just Calgary that looks like this. Toronto, Edmonton, and Ottawa are equally depressing. But not every big city has these problems. I recently spent two weeks in Japan, including visits to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, where I noticed zero litter — not a cigarette butt, not a coffee cup — and just one person sitting on the curb apparently intoxicated. A police officer had him detained at that very moment. I went on dozens of subway rides without feeling unsafe once.
>Japan convinced me that Canadians don’t need to accept so much urban disorder. Addicts deserve compassion and treatment, but there are no excuses for letting them destroy our downtowns, to say nothing of themselves.
Man are we stupid.
RefrigeratorOk648 on
>So what’s Japan doing differently? Enforcement of strict laws against drug possession seems to be the solution. Japan has convinced me, despite my strong civil libertarian leanings, that it’s time to end the failed decriminalization experiment and treat possession of hard drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine as crimes again.
The US have strict laws and send a lot of people to jail for drug use and it’s not made much of a difference. In the Philippines they executed users and dealers in the street and that did reduce drug use but probably because they killed 20,000 people.
I would say it’s more a cultural thing when comparing to Japan. In the article it says there is no litter but that is cultural – At the big sporting events the Japanese fans collect all the trash (not just their own). Try getting Canadians to pick up their own or other peoples trash at sports/concerts….
aldur1 on
Illegal drug usage is rarely simply about illegal drug usage.
Tokyo has some of the best housing affordability when it comes to big metropolitans in the world due in no small part to its zoning policy. All of Japan has 12 types of zoning which means housing can be built much faster than its North American counterparts to keep up with demand.
People are going to turn to drugs to escape the instability of their lives. Being able to access affordable housing is a critical component to stopping people from turning to drugs in the first place.
Until Canadians are prepared to a sacrifice their home values as the cost of affordable housing then we’re just maintaining the misery pipeline to illegal drug usage.
Edit: I should mention harsher laws are necessary for repeat offenders.
USSMarauder on
>Japan has convinced me, despite my strong civil libertarian leanings,
Josh, if just two weeks vacation changed your mind, then you had no “strong civil libertarian leanings”
QultyThrowaway on
This is something that a lot of people need to realize the current state of big cities is not normal. A lot of the time certain local subs seem to be in perpetual rage that people drive and want more roads and demand that everyone use transit so it can be funded like East Asia or Europe but there’s massive problems. No matter how much you watch urban planning videos about how cars are demonic it won’t change the fact that people will avoid transit as much as possible as long as the subways and streetcars are essentially homeless shelters where unwell people make others uncomfortable, where you see open drug use, where people will get randomly assaulted, where there is litter and human waste, and you can’t trust the seats. If you want massive investment and support for public transit you need to deal with these issues.
tricky4444 on
Honestly its more about culture. Japanese people are generally more respectful and obey their laws to the T. Something simple like masking up if you’re feeling sick was part of their culture long before covid. Did you see that they were the only team in the fifa world cup to clean their locker room and fold the Jersey’s? It’s not going to happen here since there is already a lack of police enforcing laws.
Azure_Omishka on
One of my best friends has been in Japan for the last couple weeks and man, he is so not looking forward to coming back.
The people are nicer, the food is affordable and delicious, housing is affordable, the transit system is fantastic and there aren’t cracked out methheads harassing them.
There are cons to living in Japan too, but the pros seems to highly outweigh the cons. Hell, I’d move there if it wasn’t so difficult to get permanent residence there.
davefromgabe on
Its the same people destroying the cities. It’s all the same people, 99% of canadians are respectful decent citizens, and yet we all have to put up with this because we think it’s cruel to put repeat offenders in jail.
Our compassion has been exploited by people who frankly don’t deserve it, and ruined the cities around us because everyone deserves a s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ f̶o̶u̶r̶t̶h̶ f̶i̶f̶t̶h̶ s̶i̶x̶t̶h̶ hundredth chance.
Confident_Plan7187 on
Japan has a pretty draconian justice system. Maybe we need to borrow that.
UltraManga85 on
We’re becoming a banana republic.
Prestigious-Gap-1649 on
Breaking news at 6, Collective culture makes good public order.
Are we all going to wear masks in public, accept public surveillance, banning homeschool, impose media self censorship and allowing police to use enhance interrogation to have 99% conviction?
Individual-Camera624 on
Honestly… yeah. There are plenty of cultures built on respect for eachother and the world we live on rather than independence and liberty. When you base a culture on entitlement, you get what we have here in the West.
12 Comments
>It’s not just Calgary that looks like this. Toronto, Edmonton, and Ottawa are equally depressing. But not every big city has these problems. I recently spent two weeks in Japan, including visits to Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka, where I noticed zero litter — not a cigarette butt, not a coffee cup — and just one person sitting on the curb apparently intoxicated. A police officer had him detained at that very moment. I went on dozens of subway rides without feeling unsafe once.
>Japan convinced me that Canadians don’t need to accept so much urban disorder. Addicts deserve compassion and treatment, but there are no excuses for letting them destroy our downtowns, to say nothing of themselves.
Man are we stupid.
>So what’s Japan doing differently? Enforcement of strict laws against drug possession seems to be the solution. Japan has convinced me, despite my strong civil libertarian leanings, that it’s time to end the failed decriminalization experiment and treat possession of hard drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine as crimes again.
The US have strict laws and send a lot of people to jail for drug use and it’s not made much of a difference. In the Philippines they executed users and dealers in the street and that did reduce drug use but probably because they killed 20,000 people.
I would say it’s more a cultural thing when comparing to Japan. In the article it says there is no litter but that is cultural – At the big sporting events the Japanese fans collect all the trash (not just their own). Try getting Canadians to pick up their own or other peoples trash at sports/concerts….
Illegal drug usage is rarely simply about illegal drug usage.
Tokyo has some of the best housing affordability when it comes to big metropolitans in the world due in no small part to its zoning policy. All of Japan has 12 types of zoning which means housing can be built much faster than its North American counterparts to keep up with demand.
People are going to turn to drugs to escape the instability of their lives. Being able to access affordable housing is a critical component to stopping people from turning to drugs in the first place.
Until Canadians are prepared to a sacrifice their home values as the cost of affordable housing then we’re just maintaining the misery pipeline to illegal drug usage.
Edit: I should mention harsher laws are necessary for repeat offenders.
>Japan has convinced me, despite my strong civil libertarian leanings,
Josh, if just two weeks vacation changed your mind, then you had no “strong civil libertarian leanings”
This is something that a lot of people need to realize the current state of big cities is not normal. A lot of the time certain local subs seem to be in perpetual rage that people drive and want more roads and demand that everyone use transit so it can be funded like East Asia or Europe but there’s massive problems. No matter how much you watch urban planning videos about how cars are demonic it won’t change the fact that people will avoid transit as much as possible as long as the subways and streetcars are essentially homeless shelters where unwell people make others uncomfortable, where you see open drug use, where people will get randomly assaulted, where there is litter and human waste, and you can’t trust the seats. If you want massive investment and support for public transit you need to deal with these issues.
Honestly its more about culture. Japanese people are generally more respectful and obey their laws to the T. Something simple like masking up if you’re feeling sick was part of their culture long before covid. Did you see that they were the only team in the fifa world cup to clean their locker room and fold the Jersey’s? It’s not going to happen here since there is already a lack of police enforcing laws.
One of my best friends has been in Japan for the last couple weeks and man, he is so not looking forward to coming back.
The people are nicer, the food is affordable and delicious, housing is affordable, the transit system is fantastic and there aren’t cracked out methheads harassing them.
There are cons to living in Japan too, but the pros seems to highly outweigh the cons. Hell, I’d move there if it wasn’t so difficult to get permanent residence there.
Its the same people destroying the cities. It’s all the same people, 99% of canadians are respectful decent citizens, and yet we all have to put up with this because we think it’s cruel to put repeat offenders in jail.
Our compassion has been exploited by people who frankly don’t deserve it, and ruined the cities around us because everyone deserves a s̶e̶c̶o̶n̶d̶ t̶h̶i̶r̶d̶ f̶o̶u̶r̶t̶h̶ f̶i̶f̶t̶h̶ s̶i̶x̶t̶h̶ hundredth chance.
Japan has a pretty draconian justice system. Maybe we need to borrow that.
We’re becoming a banana republic.
Breaking news at 6, Collective culture makes good public order.
Are we all going to wear masks in public, accept public surveillance, banning homeschool, impose media self censorship and allowing police to use enhance interrogation to have 99% conviction?
Honestly… yeah. There are plenty of cultures built on respect for eachother and the world we live on rather than independence and liberty. When you base a culture on entitlement, you get what we have here in the West.