up:: Content
author:: Weapons of Reason
full title:: Lonely in Tokyo
url: Link
Highlights
- kodokushi, or solitary death
- onstruction of sprawling, suburban housing developments that ring Tokyo, where communal spaces are lacking, commutes difficult and families distant
- Claiming to have been in a car crash or accident, the fraudster will beg for money from their victim. This crime is frighteningly common and telling of the extent of isolation in the megacity.
- Hikikomori are characterised as shut-ins, young people unable to find partners who withdraw from society
- The maelstrom of informal dealings, kinship links and general chaos of Kinshasa, Manila or Lagos is swept away on a tide of organised, homogenised industrial capitalism, as rickety slums are replaced with sprawling suburban developments. With them go the personal networks, once solidified by proximity and necessary for survival, in place of integration and assimilation by organised public and private institutions.