There was a lot yesterday to stimulate the thoughts of someone (me) who does a lot of thinking about sustainability.

For starters there was the Nakagin Capsule Tower. I recognized it immediately from television and was delighted to see it in person. Good thing we tripped across it, too, because apparently it’s slated for distruction.

The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa and is made up of small individual units that were designed to be combined replaced or upgraded as years went on. Like most utopian visions, this one never took off, but the concept remains a though-provoking one. From the streets signs of decay are very clear, with rust falling from the round windows and streaking along its pavement. Asbestos has sealed its fate, but it’s still sad to see a landmark like this disappear.

Here’s a context shot:

On the other hand, new attempts at making a healthier city are taking hold. This picture is the Jaquet Droz store in the Ginza district. Sometimes called the “curtain wall,” the building was designed by Shigeru Ban and is meant to bring greenery and garden space right into the city. I find it a very clever way to turn something that is usually horizontal (gardens) and make it vertical. It’s like a soft, gentle rest for the eyes on the way through a dizzying tech-heavy city.

We also visited the Hama-rikyu Gardens, a former duck hunting grounds now a city park reminiscient of Central Park in New York. These spaces are the lungs of cities and this one, particularly lush and rife with birds and wildlife is particulary heartening. A little unfortunate that residents can’t freely enjoy the park (admission is required), but given the ancient temple and 300-year-old pine tree inside, they can be forgiven for keeping the crowds down.

Spiritual peace is also important for healthy city living and Tokyo has temples on every corner. The other nice thing about that is that temples are usually surrounded by greenery and become a great way to protect little slices of the city from the overwhelming juggernaut of Tokyo’s economic might. We visited the Shinjo-ji temple. A beautiful area and a peaceful place to take a bit of a breather and do some shopping.

I tried the stick fortune kiosk:

Here’s my fortune:

No. 44 REGULAR FORTUNE

The blake and white stones are scattered on the chess game board. One’s fortune are not decided yet. If you want to get win, you should step ahead always. Like a gold dragon shower down the sweet rain from the sky, the Buddha and the God will provide you mercy. Washing up those bad which stuck to the old root to refresh its life. The fortune comes appear to

*Your request will be ranted. *The patient will get well soon. *The lost article will be found soon. *Though it take a little time, the person you wait for will come. *Building a new house and removal are both well. *It is good to start at trip. *Marriage and employment are both well.

We’ll see…

Well, we made it safe and sound to a rainy Tokyo last night.

The trip has been planned for some time but we’ve been so busy planning and preparing that I haven’t had much time to do much research on sustainable living related to Japan before I arrived. Hopefully we’ll see more interesting stuff as the trip progresses.

When we landed, it was incredibly overcast and rainy. You can see how thick the clouds were.

I have to say the Narita airport is the most efficient and easiest of any I’ve been in. We were literally off the 777 and on the limosine bus in maybe a half hour. When we arrived at baggage claim, yep, there were our bags waiting for us. We had some debate about whether this was because of the very efficient Japanese or simply because we upgraded to Economy Plus at United. (My marketing brain was annoyed at that possibility because you have to TELL people if you’re going to give them extra value like that.)

The bus ride was painless even for those that don’t speak the language and it was very nice.

Our hotel, the Park Hotel Tokyo is very nice. Most interesting points: the LOBBY is on the 25th floor and the elevators are whisper-silent. It’s almost eerie how quiet and smooth they are. We found some food (tonkatsu) and tried to stay awake in an attempt to get onto normal time. Finally we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and passed out at about 8-9 p.m. local (something like 3 a.m. our time, I think).

Here are a couple shots from the room.

Well, naturally we woke up at 3 a.m. local (8 a.m. our time) and figured we could either do something or try to sleep for 3 more hours. We read for awhile and finally decided to head down to the Tsukiji fish market. It gets going at about 5 a.m. so we had to hussle. Good way to put jet lag to use, though.

The first fun part was the subway, also pretty easy for a foreigner to navigate. Of course, we only had to go one stop so it wasn’t too risky. I love seeing a quality mass transit system. It’s alarming how behind the times we are in the states. When the oil runs out, we’re screwed. Anyway, we ran into a couple from the east coast also on their way there so we talked to them for quite a bit as headed toward the market.

The market is very interesting. Lots of weird looking fish and chaos to keep the eye interested. Just watch out for the rushing carts and yelling fish merchants.

And check out this excellent example of recycling. Yes, that is a mountain of styrofoam.

There’s a neighboring market with lots of random little shops tucked away inside. We found chocolate croissants — beats sushi at 6 a.m. And, of course, coffee and tea from a vending machine. The rain hasn’t stopped yet, but it’s wonderfully warm and moist.

Now we’re killing time in the hotel until other stuff opens. Yes, we’ve packed in a whole day and it’s only 8:30 a.m. Whew!

And a parting shot of a Maneki-Neko (lucky cat) that I think looks like George W. Bush.

A decade or so ago when I lived in Chicago, I became aware of a program by the city to replace their water mains — 1 percent at a time. It took a bit of thinking for me to get my mind around the idea. One percent a year? Why not wait until it fails? Wouldn’t that be more cost-effective?

Obviously the magic of one percent is that it’s another way of saying 1/100th. In other words, Chicago would be replacing its entire system every 100 years. Sounded wonky to me and maybe a little boring. Until I began considering the broader implications.

If you can upgrade 1 percent of any system every year AND you build things to last a minimum of 100 years, you’ve created a sustainable solution. This means a budget system that is easier to manage, fewer surprises every year and a more reliable system.

By deferring maintenance to future generations, cities have long taken out loans against the future, betting that some future politician would be the one holding the reins when things finally fell apart. I see this currently in Seattle in decaying roads and the Alaskan Way Viaduct, which is only 55 years old!

The situation we find ourselves in as Americans in 2008 is that much of our country’s infrastructure was built during a relatively narrow time frame in our history. If you consider that the materials, technology and budgets of the time allowed, generally, for a certain lifespan. How many more bridges are close to collapse? How many cities have ignored their water main problems and sewer system maintenance? And don’t even get me started on our aging electrical grid.

Now I’m not naive enough to think we can just throw 1 percent of the repair costs of everything in our cities into the city budget and call it good. But the concept behind this thinking is solid, it seems to me. Maybe it’s building certain infrastructure out to 200 year levels and replacing 1/2 percent a year. Or, if you can’t trust that what you’re replacing will last 100 years, you need to increase the amount of the infrastruture you replace each year. Say 2 percent a year and assume things will last 50 years. You get the idea.

The downside is that you have to trust that 100 years of politicians will resist the urge to cut corners and spend this dedicated money on other goodies. Chicago is already having problems. Perhaps codifying into constitutions is the only safe path. I don’t know.

But I do know putting off this kind of maintenance is just putting off the inevitable. And when you have to replace an entire city’s, say, water mains because you procrastinated for decades, people starve.

Bringing this kind of maintenance under control by planning and budgeting for it up-front isn’t just smart. It’s the very definition of sustainability. And creates a healthy, safe city that can last forever.

Well, the new Planet Green network has gone live. I guess this is a positive development in terms of raising environmental consciousness.

I watched a few minutes of Renovation Nation, which seemed pretty interesting. It features a fashion-upgraded Steve Thomas (from This Old House). The show, from my five minute viewing, looks like This Old House with an eco spin. Pretty good idea and had some interesting topics.

On the other hand, I had to turn away from “Alter Eco,” which is basically a product placement extravaganza masquerading as a reality show.

Which is unfortunately why I welcome the arrival of Planet Green with some trepidation. Aside from just being annoying, these shows that feature a lot of “eco” products and toss around the word “green” every 2 minutes cause a lot of confusion among the public. Or rather, it reinforces the idea that slapping some sort of eco-friendly label on a product frees consumers from any guilt or deeper thinking about what they’re buying. And the constant sales pitch is exhausting:

Character 1: “Are those sunglasses eco?”

Character 2: “Why, yes, as a matter of fact they are.”

Me: “Yawn.”

We’ll see where things go. Hopefully there are at least enough decent shows to give Planet Green a fighting chance. And if you guys at the network want to see my treatment, let me know!

This is just for fun. The science barge is a clever use of an old barge in New York City. A combination educational facility and urban farm, the barge makes use of this slice of real estate in an area where real estate is at a premium.

The facility runs completely carbon-free and uses no pesticides and is powered with the solar panels you see here. Cool!

H/T to Casa Sugar for the find.

I’m delighted today to introduce a bright new face to Moving Like Water readers. Some of you may recognize Renae from her snarky, edgy and ever-insightful comments on this site. She recently launched her own blog at Renaedujour.com, but we’re lucky to have her occasionally join us here.

LIke myself, Renae struggles with the need to juggle the realities of daily life with the desire to raiser her family in a more sustainable, healthier world. She may not always know the answers, but she enjoys struggling with hard problems in an attempt to reach the best possible path. It’s a model we should all try to emulate.

Thanks for joining us, Renae. We’re lucky to have you!

If I could quote myself for a moment, I believe the path to true energy sustainability is found with these steps:

Step 1: Derive all energy from U.S.-based sources.

Step: 2: Move all energy sources to renewables.

Step 3: Separate each region and have each area provide its own power, for example, the northwest should be on its own grid, the southwest, the center of the country in one or two sections and then the northeast and southeast.

Step 4: Separate each state. I live in Washington and there’s no reason Washington state couldn’t provide all of its own power. If it has excess, it could sell the remainder to other states that are suffering dips, but each state would take care of itself first.

Step 5: Each city should take care of its own needs. Same goes for counties. Seattle, where I live, should be putting together plans to generate enough power for itself. It’d be great for a progressive place such as this to be the only one with its lights on when the larger regional grid collapses.

Step 6: Next I’d love to see each neighborhood take care of their own needs as well. Imagine (relatively) smaller windmills hovering over city parks generating enough power for just the few hundred or thousand homes in the area.

Step 7: Last, but not least, it would be wonderful to see each home and business also taking care of itself. You can buy power off the grid if you need it, or provide 100% of your own power.

This approach offers great stability, redundancy and security. Economics are driving this move already, despite inept politicians and greedy corporations. The more we as businesses and individuals can provide for ourselves, the better off we are.

The Swift Wind Turbine is another example of this approach brought to life. Found via Inhabit.com, the capacity is up to 2,000 kwh annually and should be available this summer. Swift’s Web site highlights the quiet operation as its main benefit, but I’d say the biggest advantage is its apparently ability to be deployed in an urban environment. Once wind power (and other sources) can spread into cities and suburbs cost-effectively, these devices will be as common as aerial TV antennas once were.

If there’s one problem with solar power, it’s that it can take an enormous amount of real estate to generate a sufficient amount of power.

Well, maybe not for much longer. I just tripped across this entry from last year’s Re:volt awards. The idea is to use helium-filled balloons that are embedded with solar arrays. Power is brought down the cable where it would be devoured by a hungry nation.

The design would save the costs of buying the real estate and allow you to put much more power generation in the same acreage.

Not sure if it’ll fly, but it’s a great concept!