Occupation Maps of Japan

[Mulboyne]

Japan Probe spotted a Frog In the Well entry entitled Japanese City Plans and Topographical Maps from the US Occupation. It has some fascinating links including this 1946 city plan of Tokyo. There's a "Roppongi police station" but no other mention of the place name on the map.

[Buraku]

I'll make another online admission of guilt here

I FUCKING HATE TOKYO

I wish the US and allied buddies bulldozed the fucking place, compared to the rest of Japan the city has no true history and no culture. Only elitists get at the Imperial Palace, in the past the shogun rule were a disaster and it was managed by donkeys with thousands of people dying in fires. Tokyo has no real history and whatever history it has mostly stinks and only has a few years on the aged colonial settlements in N.America. Toyko is basically a hick village suddenly transformed into big-city
and it was the Tokyo elite who caused most of the bullshit during WW2 but instead Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to pay the ultimate price getting turned into hibakusha people.
I suppose MacArthur was smart enough, he knew rebuilding a devastated Toyko would have kept the Japanese in jobs and help bring some wealth and re-building a capital city brings some pride back into the country.

Think about it

Tokyo has been given too much power over the years, its the finance hub, has the major port, commercial center, its has the air traffic routes. Even the defense ministry and defense agency only lie a few mins from the center of Tokyo, it's the political capital and a megalopolis is 30 fucking million...if Tokyo were ever to suffer another raid or natural disaster the entire country of Japan would be completely fucked.Tokyo just turned out like many of the major cities around the world, a big ugly over priced concrete shithole and unable to pay off its keep. If I could go back in time I only wish somewhere like Nara or Kyoto could have been the political capital
if I was super powered gaijin like MacArthur I would have given the title of Capital to a better city, de-centralized Japan more and turned Tokyo into a Industrial hub or one giant sweat shop for the village idiots who refuse to move out

[wuchan]

I'll make another online admission of guilt here

I FUCKING HATE TOKYO

I wish the US and allied buddies bulldozed the fucking place, compared to the rest of Japan the city has no true history and no culture. Only elitists get at the Imperial Palace, in the past the shogun rule were a disaster and it was managed by donkeys with thousands of people dying in fires. Tokyo has no real history and whatever history it has mostly stinks and only has a few years on the aged colonial settlements in N.America. Toyko is basically a hick village suddenly transformed into big-city
and it was the Tokyo elite who caused most of the bullshit during WW2 but instead Hiroshima and Nagasaki were to pay the ultimate price getting turned into hibakusha people.
I suppose MacArthur was smart enough, he knew rebuilding a devastated Toyko would have kept the Japanese in jobs and help bring some wealth and re-building a capital city brings some pride back into the country.

Think about it

Tokyo has been given too much power over the years, its the finance hub, has the major port, commercial center, its has the air traffic routes. Even the defense ministry and defense agency only lie a few mins from the center of Tokyo, it's the political capital and a megalopolis is 30 fucking million...if Tokyo were ever to suffer another raid or natural disaster the entire country of Japan would be completely fucked.Tokyo just turned out like many of the major cities around the world, a big ugly over priced concrete shithole and unable to pay off its keep. If I could go back in time I only wish somewhere like Nara or Kyoto could have been the political capital
if I was super powered gaijin like MacArthur I would have given the title of Capital to a better city, de-centralized Japan more and turned Tokyo into a Industrial hub or one giant sweat shop for the village idiots who refuse to move out

He based this on the same ideas that were used in the US. Most state capitols are in the center of the state. ND, SD, OK, IA, AR, MS, AL, MO, NC, SC, AZ, IL, IN, and many more. I think the idea was to make japan totally dependent on the us so that one day it could be annexed as a state.

Tokyo does suck tho...

[Mike Oxlong]

The long-term foreign residents I know that actually like Tokyo tend to live on the fringes, or in nearby bedroom communities, in relatively large homes with decent gardens, and take their weekends in the countryside.

[Charles]

..Tokyo has no real history and whatever history it has mostly stinks and only has a few years on the aged colonial settlements in N.America..

Umm.. have you read any history? Edo already had a castle built for decades at the time Christopher Columbus discovered a continent populated by naked savages.

[Doctor Stop]

Edo already had a castle built for decades at the time Christopher Columbus discovered a continent populated by naked savages.

Yes, but it took another 500 years for Japan to have naked savages populate Edo Castle's moat.

[Dragonette]

Umm.. have you read any history? Edo already had a castle built for decades at the time Christopher Columbus discovered a continent populated by naked savages.

A continent covered with naked savages?
Aa, natsukashii desu ne!
Not much of that here in the States now, but if we should ever get nostalgic for the old days...

[Buraku]

Umm.. have you read any history? Edo already had a castle built for decades at the time Christopher Columbus discovered a continent populated by naked savages.

Yes Charles you fucking asshole
I already said it(Tokyo) has a few years on the aged colonial settlements in N.America

However you need to get it through your head
Edo Castle is not the castle you see today, the castle has been improved and modified over the years. Some militant monk named dokan built a wall and a moat sitting on rocks and made of rotting wood, standing about 18 feet high
...that's it
a moat with rotten wood
no big magical city you envision, there was no big metropolis, no big flourishing culture
just a moat and a bunch of religious hillbillies with swords wondering if this patch of land would ever become something
It would become something but that wasn't because of a moat built by a monk it was because of events like Emperor Meiji's era of restoration and post WW2 it was because of MacArthur pumping money in to rebuild this asshole of a city

the first sign of a small village of hicks soon to be taken over by a Bulimia nervosa shogunate. You know that fat cross eyed fuck named Ieyesu? A big name like Ieyesu arrived most likely because he voiced objections to Hideyoshi's rule, objected legacy or maybe he objected to the invasion in Asia. Ieyesu wasn't getting promoted, it was more like trnasferring a loudmouth soldier to start cleaning toilets in Alaska.This was the year 1470? 1460?...I don't know and can't say I really fucking care either but
It was hardly the big ancient megalopolis revisionist historians try to describe, it was a village of hicks


Ok Modern N.American history doesn't go back so far, 1492 Columbus
but soon you get Quebec City, Havana, Plymouth etc at their time they were true cities built and supplied by some of the most modern ships the world had ever seen
Plus you already have ancient Native America cities like Teotihuacan and Mitla which probably have a Millennium on Tokyo
("naked savages"?)

Like I said I fucking hate Tokyo...but not because it has no real history and I don't hate it because it has no fucking culture especially compared to the rest of Japan

I hate it because it has been allowed grow fat and over-ripe and it is unable to pay its keep. It has been given way too much money and power with the port, the commercial centers, traffic routes, the defense department, finance hub, the political capital etc all condensed into one region
If one of those Izu Islands decided to belch some crap onto "Edo" once again, Tokyo would be dead and the rest of Japan crippled because a government was too stupid to not see the values of decentralization

[Charles]

Yes Charles you fucking asshole
I already said it(Tokyo) has a few years on the aged colonial settlements in N.America

Yeah, if you consider 150+ years "a few."

Ok Modern N.American history doesn't go back so far, 1492 Columbus
but soon you get Quebec City, Havana, Plymouth etc at their time they were true cities built and supplied by some of the most modern ships the world had ever seen

Jamestown Settlement: 1607.

Plus you already have ancient Native America cities like Teotihuacan and Mitla which probably have a Millennium on Tokyo
("naked savages"?)

Yeah, I've been to Teotihuacan but I'm not sure it counts as history if it was a prehistoric culture that got wiped out.

[sublight]

The long-term foreign residents I know that actually like Tokyo tend to live on the fringes, or in nearby bedroom communities, in relatively large homes with decent gardens, and take their weekends in the countryside.

Is San'ya the fringe? 'cos honestly I love this place.

And that has nothing to do with the half-liter of whisky I've downed tonight.

[Takechanpoo]

What Buraku said is correct at the point of the fact that in Tokyo visible history evaporates soon and is not multilayeredly accumulated like snow.
History span of Tokyo and other most of J-cities is 30 to 40 years at the most.
That is to say Japan's history is long in record but short in memory.

[Mike Oxlong]

Good ol' América del Norte had it goin' on for about as long as Yamato...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_cities_by_year_of_foundation

[Mike Oxlong]

Is San'ya the fringe? 'cos honestly I love this place.

And that has nothing to do with the half-liter of whisky I've downed tonight.

Out in Taito-ku? Guess so, though I don't know any furriners living out in that particular part of the ward.

[Buraku]

Jamestown Settlement: 1607.

An anal asshole with a wiki search engine trying to play intellectually superior is still a fucking anal asshole.

Notice how I said N.America and I'm pretty damn sure Jamestown is not the oldest settlement, I'm sure there other places that go back to the 1500s. But I'm not so anal retentive so I couldn't be bothered looking it up just to prove you an anal jackass
... and because everyone here on FG already knows you to be one

Anyhow my opinion still stands, Edo was a little village of hicks with no fucking culture until the until the offspring of hijackers from Seikgahara settled there
and Tokyo is, was and probably always will be a shithole in desperate need of some serious demolition and decentralization if we want Japan to move forward

Goodnight Charles

What Buraku said is correct at the point of the fact that in Tokyo visible history evaporates soon and is not multilayeredly accumulated like snow.

Thank you Take

[Charles]

An anal asshole with a wiki search engine trying to play intellectually superior is still a fucking anal asshole.

I knew Jamestown from memory.

[Greji]

An anal asshole with a wiki search engine trying to play intellectually superior is still a fucking anal asshole.

I think I'll go have a wank....

[Behan]

I know this thread is about occupation maps, but has anyone ever heard of people collecting 'Made in Occupied Japan' trinkets? I know someone collecting them.

An example from Google images:

[Mike Oxlong]

Yeah, I knew a fellow back in the old country with a set of "china" made in Occupied Japan...great for dinner parties