The word city is a surprisingly difficult to define, but there is at least one word that should be in any definition. Concrete. As a substance, it plays an integral role in the construction of a city. As a state of being it is antonymous to a city’s nature. A city’s borders’ are vaguely defined and change with time. Inside its borders, buildings are razed, built, and remodeled. The inhabitants create a living, breathing beast with as many varied locales as there are varied emotions in the people who walk its streets. To put it abstractly, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart would recognize a city.
And so would I. When I arrived in Japan, I was swallowed whole by the largest city I have ever seen. Tokyo is a city so large that it has multiple skylines. So large that from the 48th floor of the Metropolitan Government Building near the center of the city only a sea of endless buildings can be seen. So large that in the two weeks I was there, I feel like I only scratched the surface of this incredibly complex place. A quick glance at the multicolored spider web train and subway maps alludes to this complexity. Traveling these lines leads to a variety of experiences. The strange electronic world of Akihabara; the eccentric night life of Roppongi; the high class shops of Ginza; the peacefulness of one of the many parks; the beauty of a Shinto shrine. Tokyo is certainly an interesting world.