@Richard

We’re all impressed with your ability to speak in a condescending tone about things in Japan as evidence that you’re here and therefore instantly know what you’re talking about.

But you’re going to have to face the fact that yes, Hachioji is a suburban area of Tokyo, but it is not a suburb like Chiba for example, but actually part of Tokyo.

“Tokyo can draw its municipal borders however it wants…”

It can, and does draw it’s borders how it wants. It’s borders include Hachioji no matter how much it bothers you, that’s the fact of the matter.

And really, if you could play this out just one more step, you would understand why this is actually news just as much as if there was someone even further away from your definition of Tokyo, in another bed town like Ichihara in Chiba, who had come down with the flu. Most everyone living in Hachioji commutes in crowded trains to Tokyo for work every day. They cough in that train, and now we have a few hundred sick people, who then cough in another train, and now we have a few thousand sick people.

Regardless of how well you can see a skyline from the tallest building in Hachioji, a confirmed case there is big news because it is very well connected to the center of Tokyo, as surrounding communities of big cities always are.

Calm down, Darin. Deep breaths.

Tokyo is connected by rail to every other metropolitan area on Honshu. So of course an infection in one area is likely to spread to the capital.

I hope you are not swept up in the swine flu panic and simply indignant that “someone is wrong on the internet.”

Lots of people are on edge right now, especially in germ-phobic Japan. Washed your hands thoroughly after going out in public, try not to french-kiss anyone with a hacking cough and you’ll probably be fine.

Actually I think the paranoia is ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the claim that Hachioji isn’t part of Tokyo

The analogy doesn’t quite work because Newark is in New Jersey. Hachioji is in 東京都.

I used “Tokyo” because it is within 東京都 and the Japanese media has been using “東京都” in its headlines. If we were talking about a distant island that happens to be under the administrative control of Tokyo, I would make more of a distinction, but Hachioji is close enough to the main wards of the city that I didn’t see a problem using “Tokyo” in the headline. I used the wording “Tokyo area” in the post itself because I didn’t see any news about it being within the special wards.

Also, I think I heard on the news that the girl and her infected classmate both attend a school in Kawasaki, not Hachioji.

I agree, but the difference is just borders. The actual proximity is similar.

I am sorry I have offended many cartographically-inclined posters here. And while this back-and-forth is fun for a while, I should relent.

Hachioji-shi is definitely part of Tokyo-to. Both the Keio and JR lines make regular stops there. Swine flu appearing in Hachioji significantly increases the chance of it spreading into more populous areas downtown. I dispute none of these things.

In my original post I hoped I could assuage the fears of those who were not familiar with the greater Tokyo area. Hachioji is quite far from downtown.

If someone keeled over from swine flu in the middle of Shinjuku station I might be panicking more. But everyone is free to worry as much as they like.