Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
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Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#2Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#3Is Paris considered a great place to live? I've been there a couple times in the last few years, and it just seemed like every other big western city. (except for the police walking around with assault weapons.)
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#4The problem with charging below market prices for anything is that it necessarily leads to a mismatch of supply and demand. So the question is how do you allocate that supply?
One way is to have hidden costs. This could range from straight up bribes, to paid consultants to fill out a lot of forms or talk to the right people, to just knowing someone
Another way is a lottery which benefits a tiny percentage of people. Sure it's "fair" but the incentive to rig it is huge
But even with a lottery it's still inefficient. If you give someone an apartment with a market rent of 4k for only 1k you're effectively giving them a 3k apartment subsidy. But if you handed them 3k, maybe they would spend 1k dollars on extra apartment and 2k for something else.
There are other distortions. Overall these are the worst kinds of policies because it's all hidden costs. If we realized that with a system like this we're giving 1 out of 1k eligible people the equivalent of a 30k a year transfer, we'd likely realize it's a ridiculous policy. But instead we just say how nice it is so and so is paying only 600 Euros to live in the center of Paris
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#5"A city, if it’s only made up of poor people, is a disaster," said Mr. Apparu, who now works for a property developer. "And if it’s only made up of rich people, it’s not much better."
From a human+social position, I strongly agree with this. The value of social benevolence isn't limited to the direct beneficiaries and has positive impacts beyond the economics.
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#6The Mayor of Paris has bigger balls any other Mayor except maybe Barcelona
...and they're both women! The confidence to make radical, meaningful changes for the better of the people and tell the opposition to get stuffed... I wish all politicians had that.
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#7NY is a mess of policy failure and rampant corruption in the implementation of these policies, policies which have for decades been championed by the NY Times, frequently by naive portrayals of policies in Western European countries like this one. Once imported at 5 times the cost and half the quality these become irrevocable subsidies for well connected landlords and administrators. The city needs to get basic things like sewage, security, and transit working before plowing any more money into subsidized housing.
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#8> One quarter of residents in the French capital now live in government-owned housing, part of an aggressive effort to keep lower-income Parisians — and their businesses — in the city.
I think they meant "...and their votes"
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#9The Mayor of Paris has bigger balls any other Mayor except maybe Barcelona ...and they're both women! The confidence to make radical, meaningful changes for the better of the people and tell the opposition to get stuffed... I wish all politicians had that.
> I wish all politicians had that.
Even the politicians you disagree with? So for example, AfD in Germany making the radical, meaningful change for the better of the German people by removing non-Germans from Germany ... and telling you to get stuffed ... you'd love that presumably?
What you love is this policy. Don't confuse that with the method, which you clearly wouldn't like if the shoe was on the other foot.
Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing
#10The problem with charging below market prices for anything is that it necessarily leads to a mismatch of supply and demand. So the question is how do you allocate that supply? One way is to have hidden costs. This could range from straight up bribes, to paid consultants to fill out a lot of forms or talk to the right people, to just knowing someone Another way is a lottery which benefits a tiny percentage of people.…
I used to think like you but no longer do. A city NEEDS to have people of all ages, backgrounds, income levels etc in it to not die. Yes those people who live in that most central subsidized housing are in some ways winning a lottery ticket, and the real policy is to build a lot more housing as close to the city as possible. But Paris are doing that! AND adding new public transit etc etc. This multifaceted approach is better than just sterile economista policy. Vienna does it very successfully as well. Almost no one owns their home there, they're all renting very cheaply very high quality beautiful homes, including inside and very close to the city.