Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura, lamenting on the results of a city government survey to find the most attractive urban area to visit in Japan. It backfired when Nagoya came in last. Kyoto was No. 1. (Asahi Shimbun)
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Well, we found out that our city is the No. 1 city people don’t want to visit from the survey that we conducted. We really need to urgently develop a unique city.
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gaijinfo
Yes, let's hurry up and create a "unique city."
Maybe putting up a couple of posters of cartoon characters with cute slogans should do the trick...
Jimizo
It is a pretty unattractive city. To be honest, almost all Japanese cities are. Sapporo is probably the best I've seen.
I head out to the coast or the countryside if I take a short break in Japan. Some lovely places to see.
Nessie
Sapporo is pretty nondescript in terms of architecture, but it's got lots of parks and it has wilderness within a 40 minute drive of downtown.
Moonraker
Yeah, nothing comes to mind when I think of Nagoya.
Pukey2
Nagoya, along with Osaka.
Haaa Nemui
The fact that nobody wants to visit makes it sound quite appealing to me. Anyway... Gonna be a legoland there soon
smithinjapan
I know a lot of Japanese love to tour newly built runways or buildings or even expressways as though it were a trip to the Bahamas or something, but the Toyota skyscraper and Mei-Eki are not at all things worth going to see (in fact, the whole 'building tour' is so prevalent here that Chubu Airport has a hot spring which, while seeming like an AWESOME idea and unique for visitors in transit and long waits, is really only open to locals or people visiting the outport who don't go through customs!). Nagoya has a castle that's not bad, but doesn't hold a candle to others, and its entertainment district is a joke. The only thing Nagoya has going for it is food. GREAT food, in fact, but that's it.
albaleo
I thought that was the reason many Japanese don't want to go there. The food is weird.
Apart from that, I've spent many pleasant evenings in Nagoya. Great karaoke bars.
JeffLee
Good luck with that. Around half dozen general contractors and several home constructors design and build all the nation's buildings, basically to the same plans, which are about cheapness and function, with aesthetics a distant consideration. They historically have been like an oligopoly. The civil engineering also takes a cookie-cutter approach.
So the same, boxy artificial looking building or house can be found in a dense industrial suburb of Nagoya, a sparsely populated coastal area of Hokkaido, a rugged valley in Nagano. l love pointing out to my wife things houses that face a majestic ocean view: with two or three tiny windows.
SenseNotSoCommon
Miso Katsu is a great metaphor for Nagoya.
coskuri
Not confusing with Hakodate, which is a cute seaside town with lots of ikemen ? Sapporo looks like nothing.
Like most cities. Idem for Nagoya, when you go there not-for-business , it's for the Anjo matsuri or something like that.
Tokyo-Engr
Nice to see my favorite town (by far) in Japan mentioned in the comments....Hakodate. Such a beautiful place! The slopes and view down to the water from them remind me of San Francisco. Food is fantastic if you love seafood and people are very down to earth. People are also quite welcoming and open to gaikokujin due the town's history.
Have been to Nagoya many times for business. I like the food but I would agree....there are few reasons to go there to engage in tourism or leisure.
kurisupisu
The place is quite wealthy judging from all the new Toyotas but nondescript.......
Aly Rustom
I've been to Nagoya once and was struck by the unfriendliness of its people. Around that same time I visited Sapporo and was struck by the friendliness of its people. Both left completely different impressions on me. Anyway, I'm not for big cities in general. Also, nagoya has to compete with Osaka and Kyoto which are both in the general vicinity, so its a lost cause. Nagoya is just not a sightseeing place- in my opinion of course.
commanteer
Nagoya will create a special project to create uniqueness, staffed with bureaucrats and lifetime political and business insiders. They will spend a fortune on consultants, who will give them examples of unique cities that Nagoya can copy. Along the way, someone may propose an idea that is truly unique. It will be roundly rejected as a stupid idea. Because it has never been done before, and therefore can't work. They will go with tried and true unique ideas.
Seriously, Nagoya is kind of boring. I think it suffers partly because of its proximity to Tokyo, which sucks the most creative people into its orbit.
moonwatcher
Rofl. I spent two of the best weeks of my life in Nagoya. Lots of passion! It's all a state of mind friends.