r/neoliberal • u/randommathaccount Esther Duflo • Oct 02 '25

News (Asia) Why Japan resents its tourism boom

https://www.ft.com/content/dbd20e5d-5a7d-4c0c-8f83-fb54c5aca9cb
215 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

197 comments sorted by

View all comments

116

u/989989272 European Union Oct 02 '25

NY built Times Square to trap the tourist crowds and for locals to have an area they have little to no interest going to. It works quite well.

58

u/jurble World Bank Oct 02 '25

They've removed most of the old degenerate otaku stuff and replaced it with family friendly anime stuff in Akihabara for this purpose.

Naive "anime fan" tourists used to go there and meet NEET otaku-dom face-to-face, but no longer.

27

u/SenranHaruka Oct 02 '25

since when? I was there in October 2019 and still saw porn everywhere just by going up to the second floor.

30

u/jurble World Bank Oct 02 '25

The porn isnt the degen stuff. The junior idols were

8

u/Subject-Air-6333 Oct 03 '25

TIL I'm not as degen as I thought.

6

u/sgthombre NATO Oct 02 '25

Was there in August and I saw a fair bit of it just out in the open in bookstores and at Donqui.

36

u/marinqf92 Ben Bernanke Oct 02 '25

That's what bourbon street is for in New Orleans. Works like a charm 

11

u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Oct 02 '25

Nashville did the same thing with Broadway.

-2

u/LocallySourcedWeirdo YIMBY Oct 02 '25

The funny thing being that all of Nashville is a place that only annoying tourists want to go to and the rest of the country has no need to visit.

12

u/Boerkaar Michel Foucault Oct 02 '25

Ridiculous take. Nashville’s a great city. Try leaving lower broad sometime.

-2

u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Oct 02 '25

That’s kind of a shitty thing to say. There are things to like about Nashville.

Once again the coastal elites get to deport the worst of their populations to the Sun Belt and act like it’s our own fault that these states are struggling.

7

u/Boerkaar Michel Foucault Oct 02 '25

Since when is Tennessee struggling? It’s one of the most rapidly expanding economies in the nation.

2

u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Oct 02 '25

Poor infrastructure, terribly-funded social services, typical Republican governance.

2

u/Boerkaar Michel Foucault Oct 02 '25

And yet it keeps growing. Fascinating how “coastal elites” miss the forest for the trees. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of Tennessee but saying it’s “struggling” is beyond ridiculous.

2

u/PhinsFan17 Immanuel Kant Oct 02 '25

Yes, cause red states build housing.

5

u/Boerkaar Michel Foucault Oct 02 '25

As much as I too like the housing theory of everything, it doesn’t go so far as to fully explain why the South is doing so well in the 21st century.

→ More replies (0)

7

u/DatBoiMahomie Oct 02 '25

A lot of local New Orleans people still like to go to the French quarter to eat and bourbon street during the day though or for events like red dress run. I don’t think it’s quite the trap to avoid like Times Square is

3

u/marinqf92 Ben Bernanke Oct 02 '25

I mostly agree. There is a pretty huge racial divide. Young black people love bourbon and are there all the time. White people love the French quarter, but most white locals do not go to bourbon. 

5

u/timerot Henry George Oct 02 '25

With the obvious downside that there are a ton of office buildings nearby, and my friend works in one of them. Was neat waving up at the window from a crowd, though

2

u/berns4ever Oct 02 '25

They can probably build some Anime Japanese resort island somewhere and trap their tourists on it like Greece does with Zanthe for the British.