Joe McReynolds (@McReynoldsJoe) / X

Joe McReynolds

32.2K posts

Joe McReynolds

@McReynoldsJoe

Japan urbanism: Emergent Tokyo (2022). China-US NatSec: China's Evolving Military Strategy (2016), China's Information Warfare (2025). 摸着石头过河, learning as I go.

DC, NYC, CA, Tokyo

Joined March 2011

Pinned
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Feb 23, 2024
I've lived a lucky life. Occasional hard spots, but overall? Just fantastically lucky. And yet a half decade ago, moving to Tokyo with a vague dream of studying the megacity, I never imagined luck like this. Grateful beyond words to everyone who's decided to give our book a read!
63K
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
One trick I learned from Tokyo that helps for understanding any city: when you come across a charming small biz in a sea of generic chains, ask them about their relationship with their landlord. For example, this is the fantastic Alabaster Bookshop, near Union Square in NYC...
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
The story varies but the trend is clear: a city w/ unconventional small landlords is a city that's friendlier to idiosyncratic small businesses, the sort of spots that don't turn a big profit but that collectively make a place feel like a *place*, not a generic everywhere/nowhere
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Feb 24, 2025
I once took some not-for-credit classes at UCLA through a little-known pathway used mainly by working class immigrants. When I signed up, we all received a letter from Arnold telling us that if we kept believing in ourselves and choosing to learn and grow, anything was possible.
Lilly
@lillybilly299
Feb 24, 2025
What's up with straight men and Arnold Schwarzenegger?
527K
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
They have a landlord with a motive other than strict profit and loss; the co-op has a stake in the area and likes the idea of having a bookstore downstairs. Alabaster isn't just one more line item on a spreadsheet to them. Talking to other small biz around NYC, they all have...
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
The #1 source of these unconventional landlord relationships in Tokyo is banned in most of our cities: under Japan's zoning, homeowners can put nearly any small biz in the bottom floor of their rowhouse, by-right! Any retiree who owns their house is a potential small biz landlord
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
And often, they're not looking to get maximum return on their space, they'd just like something nice downstairs for the neighborhood they live in and care about. It's a completely different mindset from a large commercial real estate company that results in a different townscape.
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
If we want cities that feel organic and spontaneous and real, the quickest way to get there is to give people the freedom to do things with their homes other than just live in them. The endless worry about property values that leads to restrictive zoning kills urban spontaneity.
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
A story about how their unconventional relationship with their landlord that allows them to survive. Maybe their family has owned the building for ages. Maybe the landlord grew up in the neighborhood and wants to keep the old flavor alive. Sometimes it's just "bored rich people."
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
So, in a neighborhood like that, businesses like Alabaster that defy that consensus tend to stand out. I was talking to the staff about the business, and I asked them, essentially, "why are you here instead of a Chipotle?" -- the answer? A co-op owns the building above them.
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
May 14, 2022
In Tokyo, if you have a two story house in a residential neighborhood, *by right* you can put a restaurant/bar/boutique/workshop inside the ground floor of your house! Gives the backstreets a totally different feel to walking through a US neighborhood with nothing but residences.
Paprika Girl
@PaprikaGirl_JP
May 14, 2022
Today on my morning walk to get fresh bread for breakfast, I passed a very tiny home bakery near my house. I love these tiny businesses in the suburbs that people run from their living rooms! I’ll be coming again. (The lemon pie is divine!)
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
And if you're in NYC, check out Alabaster Bookshop! So much great stuff in their stacks, including a solid architecture/urbanism section. 🙂
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Jun 14, 2022
Replying to @McReynoldsJoe
Alabaster is in a part of town that is, shall we say, "generically bougie." The dining & retail here aren't actively *bad*, but they're generic w/ no history or connection to the neighborhood, interchangeable with every other place, only here b/c a profit loss calculation says so
Joe McReynolds
@McReynoldsJoe
Nov 18, 2024
We make it very, very hard to start your own coffee shop! In most places in Tokyo, you can serve coffee out of the bottom floor of your house to passers-by, by right, with frankly only the most basic health & safety inspections and licensing needed.
the Rich
@Duderichy
Nov 18, 2024
ask these people why they don’t just start their own coffee shop and 20x everyone’s wages
558K