TOKYO —Something many visitors to Japan notice is the abundance of overhead powerlines. Whether you're in the suburbs, city center, or even rural communities,it's rare to look up at the sky or towards the horizon without the view being criss crossed by thick, black cables.

So why does Japan have so many above-ground power grids when so many other countries have gone subterranean? The easy answer is cost, but there're also somepurported advantages to stringing cables up on poles, and the country hasn'tquite reached a consensus on which is the better option.

Starting with the budgetary side of things, subterranean systems are a lot more expensive. With the added expenses of digging the ditches and properly installing thelines and conduits, the cost can balloon to ten times that of a comparablysized network of above-ground poles.

Still, some contend that, economic advantages aside, this isn't the place to cutcorners. Since the mid-1980s, the Japanese government has been enacting initiatives to replace existing poles with underground lines. Not only do suchmoves please those who're tired of power lines marring the scenery, there areeven safety and durability benefits, as below-ground power grids are less exposed to the elements, making them resilient against wind and snow that candamage above-ground equipment.

A further safety benefit has been observed during earthquakes, according to the NPONon-Pole Community. The organization says that during the Hanshin Earthquakethat struck Kobe in 1995, neighborhoods with above-ground power lines were muchmore extensively damaged. Non-Pole Community's Secretary Toshikazu Inoue alsoreferred to toppled poles blocking roads and preventing emergency vehicles fromswiftly reaching victims in the disaster's aftermath.

Still,the majority of Japan's power grid remains above ground. One argument against subterranean systems has been put forward by the Tokyo Electric Power Company,or TEPCO. While the company itself has publicized the superior aesthetics anddurability against wind and snow mentioned above, it also acknowledges certainadvantages to the more common above-ground system. “In the events of floodingor landslides, it's harder to isolate damaged areas of a subterranean system,”the company points out. “That can increase the amount of time necessary torestore power to damaged areas.”

TEPCO also mentions other, simpler roles performed by power poles, such as providing housing for street lights and posting space for maps or address markers, whichcan be extremely helpful in navigating towns in Japan, where only a minusculefraction of streets have names.