It's not crime. It's cleanliness. Japanese people are really clean. That's really the main reason why things everywhere are charming.
There are cities with similar layouts to Tokyo but they aren't charming simply because those alleyways get really dirty. The griminess influences everything including the businesses and the crowds it attracts. It ends up influencing the whole flavor of the city.
Dirty cities aren’t a matter of people cleaning them so much as industrial processes and car fumes not dirtying them.
There’s also the different materials they use - everything in Tokyo is covered in concrete (not sure if that’s good or bad) but buildings also strangely tend to be covered in what I’d describe as bathroom tiles. I wondered about this, but realized it’s just so humid they’d be growing mold otherwise.
Also if you’re comparing to NYC, it’s just particularly dirty because everyone leaves their garbage on the street, since the government is incapable of organizing anything better.
I'm comparing to SF and NYC. It's definitely the cleanliness. If it wasn't for residents cleaning it up, those tiny alleyways in tokyo would just accumulate shit to the point where it's disgusting to even walk through it.
Residents in SF and NYC don't bother so it all goes to shit.
In terms of pollution, LA probably has the worst pollution but it's cleaner then SF and NYC. So it doesn't correlate. It's not the pollution. Pollution correlates more with car usage, of which LA takes the cake.
Griminess more has to do with population density, Of which, Tokyo takes the cake and also bucks the trend.
There are cities with similar layouts to Tokyo but they aren't charming simply because those alleyways get really dirty. The griminess influences everything including the businesses and the crowds it attracts. It ends up influencing the whole flavor of the city.