There is a school of thought that elevated rail is bad, or at least suboptimal, for cities. The thinking is that it's a visual blight, it's noisy, it disconnects neighbourhoods, and it can even reduce surrounding real estate values. Having a train passing directly in front of your window is admittedly less ideal than not having a train passing directly in front of your window.

But there is no shortage of examples from around the world where elevated rail does far more to benefit a community than detract from it. Tokyo is perhaps the obvious place to look. It is decidedly rail-oriented city with the majority of its network above ground and countless examples of active commercial spaces being tucked under and adjacent to elevated rail.

Here, for example, is a restaurant that I visited on my last trip and that was immediately adjacent to a track:

There is a school of thought that elevated rail is bad, or at least suboptimal, for cities. The thinking is that it's a visual blight, it's noisy, it disconnects neighbourhoods, and it can even reduce surrounding real estate values. Having a train passing directly in front of your window is admittedly less ideal than not having a train passing directly in front of your window.

But there is no shortage of examples from around the world where elevated rail does far more to benefit a community than detract from it. Tokyo is perhaps the obvious place to look. It is decidedly rail-oriented city with the majority of its network above ground and countless examples of active commercial spaces being tucked under and adjacent to elevated rail.

Here, for example, is a restaurant that I visited on my last trip and that was immediately adjacent to a track:

Tokyo is a city of contrasts. It is both hyper-modern and steeped in tradition. It is known for art, architecture, design, and fashion, yet it's also a city that — through its built form — makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant.

While the city certainly has countless examples of remarkable architecture, the vast majority of its buildings are arguably just that — buildings. They are a nondescript part of the urban fabric that give back through their siting, scale, rhythm, and mix of uses rather than their raw architectural qualities. Sometimes you may not even be able to see the building past all the signage.

If you were looking for a city to support the argument that urbanism matters more than architecture, I think Tokyo would be a good place to start.

What Tokyo does so successfully is ground-up urbanism (as opposed to top-down master planning). Flexible permissions, mixed-use zones by default, and an orientation around rail have allowed Tokyo to organically evolve into one of the most livable global cities on the planet.

In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any city of this magnitude that is simultaneously this livable. Which makes me wonder: Are we spending too much time worrying about architecture?

It is common for big cities to have design review processes. These typically consist of a panel of experts who evaluate new development proposals based on their architectural and urban design qualities. The comments that come back might suggest that a long facade be visually "broken up," or that additional stepbacks be introduced in order to mitigate the impact on the street and improve sky views. It's a process that can be lengthy.

But what Tokyo tells us is that, while architecture matters a great deal, it may not be the most important thing to focus on from a city-building standpoint. What matters more is the space and relationship between these buildings, the uses and permissions granted to their occupants, and the overall relationship to transit infrastructure. Here, urbanism is more critical than architecture.

Tokyo is a city of contrasts. It is both hyper-modern and steeped in tradition. It is known for art, architecture, design, and fashion, yet it's also a city that — through its built form — makes the argument that architecture is irrelevant.

While the city certainly has countless examples of remarkable architecture, the vast majority of its buildings are arguably just that — buildings. They are a nondescript part of the urban fabric that give back through their siting, scale, rhythm, and mix of uses rather than their raw architectural qualities. Sometimes you may not even be able to see the building past all the signage.

If you were looking for a city to support the argument that urbanism matters more than architecture, I think Tokyo would be a good place to start.

What Tokyo does so successfully is ground-up urbanism (as opposed to top-down master planning). Flexible permissions, mixed-use zones by default, and an orientation around rail have allowed Tokyo to organically evolve into one of the most livable global cities on the planet.

In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any city of this magnitude that is simultaneously this livable. Which makes me wonder: Are we spending too much time worrying about architecture?

It is common for big cities to have design review processes. These typically consist of a panel of experts who evaluate new development proposals based on their architectural and urban design qualities. The comments that come back might suggest that a long facade be visually "broken up," or that additional stepbacks be introduced in order to mitigate the impact on the street and improve sky views. It's a process that can be lengthy.

But what Tokyo tells us is that, while architecture matters a great deal, it may not be the most important thing to focus on from a city-building standpoint. What matters more is the space and relationship between these buildings, the uses and permissions granted to their occupants, and the overall relationship to transit infrastructure. Here, urbanism is more critical than architecture.

It's not always as straightforward as it may seem to measure the size of a city or urban region.

There's the problem of which urban boundary to use. And then once you've landed on that, there's the additional problem of estimating how many people live within it. This can be particularly challenging when it comes to informal settlements, where there isn't reliable population data.

The most common approach is to use the continuous built-up area as the urban agglomeration, as opposed to any sort of "city proper" boundaries. And this is exactly what the United Nations has done in its latest World Urbanization Prospects report.

Here, they have fundamentally revised their measurement methodology by using a new, so-called harmonized geospatial approach. If you'd like to nerd out on the specifics, you can do that here.

But one of the key takeaways is that this new methodology has resulted in a reordering of the world's largest urban agglomerations. At the top is now Jakarta, followed by Dhaka:

It's not always as straightforward as it may seem to measure the size of a city or urban region.

There's the problem of which urban boundary to use. And then once you've landed on that, there's the additional problem of estimating how many people live within it. This can be particularly challenging when it comes to informal settlements, where there isn't reliable population data.

The most common approach is to use the continuous built-up area as the urban agglomeration, as opposed to any sort of "city proper" boundaries. And this is exactly what the United Nations has done in its latest World Urbanization Prospects report.

Here, they have fundamentally revised their measurement methodology by using a new, so-called harmonized geospatial approach. If you'd like to nerd out on the specifics, you can do that here.

But one of the key takeaways is that this new methodology has resulted in a reordering of the world's largest urban agglomerations. At the top is now Jakarta, followed by Dhaka: