Nuttari Terrace

Nuttari Terrace is a single short street of tiny shops in a former market row east of central Niigata. The row was built as a food market in the post-war years, declined to near-total vacancy, and was taken on from around 2010 by a group who leased the empty units cheaply to makers rather than redeveloping the site. What is there now is a glassblower, a coffee roaster, a bakery, a bookshop, a sake stand and a dozen others, each in a unit about the size of a garage.

It works because nothing was rebuilt. The shopfronts, the awnings and the alley width are the 1950s market's, and the street is short enough to walk end to end in three minutes. Individual shops keep their own hours, which is the one thing to plan around.