Thanks, mordwyr, that's a very good summary and some nice pics. I see what you mean about the mix of high-rise, low rise and parks.
You can learn a lot about a city from a good map, and (thank you, Google) I see that Tokyo is a complicated place, but with a lot of variety too. Koto-Ku looks pretty nice, for example; it's pronouncable, has lots of water and a big park - just the sort of breathing space you need after those packed subways and shopping alleyways, I should think!
In Mexico, they don't do a very good job of designing cities; they use a grid system for the streets, then sell every square inch off to developers. Typically, you get a dusty square that passes for a park every twenty blocks, and sidewalks so narrow that there is space for utility poles, or pedestrians, but not both. Downtown it's difficult to move around, and in the suburbs people walk in the roads.
The extreme is Mexico City, which has some of the worst urban probs in the world.
P.S. Those fashionable girls look very strange, but happy enough. Two of them look like they're wearing chrome cylinders instead of shoes!
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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
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