Moving outside of Japan made me realize just how livable the place is. Its livability is totally hidden from outsiders whose only impressions about Japan are made based on movies or comic books. When I tell friends that Sydney is MUCH louder than Tokyo they are invariably surprised. That’s because their image of Tokyo is based on media’s representation of it, and not on their own actual experience of it. Unfortunately, lack of noise is not transpiring through media flash news or snapshots of Tokyo’s skyline. This is just a single example but there are many more.
Japanese cities are pedestrian-oriented. The hierarchy of importance on the residential streets is (starting from the topmost): pedestrians, bicycles, motorized vehicles. Even though most streets lack sidewalks, as a pedestrian you never feel threatened by cars in Tokyo. The cars are kept in check with several methods: narrow residential streets that reduce the speed, plenty of pedestrians and bicycles on the streets, low speed limits, very severe punishments for traffic accidents with the guilt always ascribed in proportion to the size of the participants (no matter who caused it, so cars are naturally disadvantaged). If you cause a serious enough accident while driving a car, you can lose your job (especially if you work in a public sector) and you’re reminded of that every time you renew your driving license! That acts as powerful deterrent to slow cars down and make the drivers more careful.
Shopping streets are often made off-limits to cars on Sundays. Lack of elevated sidewalks and curbs may also make the drivers feel like they do not own the road and the pedestrians like they’re limited to sidewalks: it’s all a shared space.
Another big factor is lack of on-street parking spaces, not even paid ones. There may be a few paid off-street parking lots per neighbourhood but not many. The Japanese law requires you to prove you have an off-street parking space if you want to buy a car. If you own a house you may have a driveway or a garage but otherwise you have to pay to the tune of $300-400 USD/month for a spot. Naturally many Japanese tend to not get a car unless they can justify the expense. Most daily facilities such as grocery stores, train station or schools don’t have any parking spaces in front of them which makes cars quite less handy for running such errands. Faced with such shortage of space most residents choose to use public transport, walk or cycle to the store instead. Cycling is big in Tokyo and most amenities such as stores have a lot of bike parking spaces in front of them, so that mode of transportation is actually encouraged and very popular.
The layout of Japanese neighborhoods also encourages public transport or other non-car modes of transport. Train stations are located right in the heart of busy shopping districts (most likely it was the other way around: the availability of public transport created the commerce around the stations) so you can get off the train and be shopping within a minute or two. If you wanted to use a car, it would be almost impossible because a) cars are most often banned from busy pedestrian areas and b) car parking is hard to get and quite far from the station.
In general cars are made feel unwelcome on the residential or commercial streets as much as possible. It’s not like the Tokyoites do not use cars at all, it’s just that they use them very judiciously and have a great alternative through awesome public transport.