Shimokitazawa 下北沢

Shimokitazawa is what happens when a neighborhood is too small for cars. The lanes around the station are barely wider than a delivery scooter, and they have filled with the kind of businesses that need low rent and foot traffic: used clothing stores by the hundred, record shops, curry houses, a dozen small theaters and the live houses that launched a good share of Japan’s indie rock. Rolling the train underground in 2013 freed a 1.7-kilometer strip of land that has become Reload and Bonus Track, low-rise clusters of coffee roasters, bookshops and a brewery that give the old chaos a planned fringe.

The best approach is to have no plan. Pick a direction from the south exit, try on a 1980s varsity jacket, let someone in an eight-seat bar recommend a show, and finish with a plate of soup curry. The theater-going crowd keeps the restaurants open late, and the last Inokashira train to Shibuya leaves just after midnight, which is roughly when the last band finishes. Shimokita is thirty years into being called the next Harajuku and has never shown any interest in becoming it.