What do you see when you look at Tokyo? Hypermodern constructions of steel and concrete? Cubic, characterless office buildings? Jared Braiterman sees green ... in the back streets, in the small cracks of dirt on the sidewalks and on his balcony. He finds patches, slivers and swaths of nature that tourists and even long-time Tokyo residents seldom see. He shares his findings on Tokyo Green Space (tokyogreenspace.com/), a blog he started after moving to Tokyo with his Japanese common-law husband three and a half years ago.
In Tokyo he has found "the ultimate city," where you don't need cars to survive and where even expensive plants are safe from theft or vandalism. In this interview with The Japan Times, Braiterman talks of the effect of community on sustainability, and about understanding a city through its plants and the people tending them.
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