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Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

nytimes.com

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Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#11

Post by dangus »

This article reminded me of a thought I’ve often had: that the USA is a great place to live for the upper middle class and above, but it’s one of the worst wealthy countries to live in when you’re poor.

From the context of the USA it seems downright amazing to see a society where public housing isn’t automatically assumed to be a number of bad things: taxpayer waste, crime haven, and antiquated disrepair.

The benefits of the tenant management system also seems like it’s good for everyone in society. Our daily surroundings really shouldn’t be a race to the highest bidder for high-rent tenants like McDonald’s to come in, underpay employees, and poison local residents with junk food. The approach to the city as a public landlord being selective and building a neighborhood through balancing available goods and services seems incredibly desirable.

In the US this is all inverted the wrong way: the wealthy neighborhoods are the only ones that can keep chains like McDonald’s and Walmart out, walkability and positive urban fabric is a luxury amenity for the few (e.g., NYC, Miami, and Chicago’s best neighborhoods), and the wealthy are the ones that are subsidized instead of those who are low income or middle class.

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#12

Post by tetris11 »

cm2187 wrote: post #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"

expand?

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#13

Post by BWStearns »

bko wrote: post #4

The 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 get these arguments against it and I'm sympathetic to the reasoning, but the point of public policy is results and the Parisian policy certainly seems to just work better than most US housing policy. SF, Boston, NYC also spend a ridiculous amount of money ostensibly trying to achieve similar outcomes but their approaches just don't work.

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#14

Post by patwolf »

> Every Thursday, Jacques Baudrier, the Paris city councilor in charge of housing, scrolls through the list of properties being exchanged by sellers and buyers on the private market. With some exceptions, the city has the legal right to pre-empt the sale of a building, buy the property and convert it to public housing.

What are the mechanics of how this works? If I agree to buy a property for a million dollars, does the city get a chance to match that price?

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#15

Post by bugglebeetle »

bko wrote: post #4

The 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.…

And yet Vienna is one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the world, with its masses of public housing, while major U.S. cities have homelessness crises and TV shows about house flipping for profit. Perhaps we should stop debating things based on the hokum of Econ 101 textbooks and look at what in the real world has actually worked (e.g. abolishing most forms of zoning, massive investments in public housing, robust public transportation, drastically curbing real estate speculation).

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#16

Post by wk_end »

afpx wrote: post #3

Is 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.)

This is hard for me to imagine. Where in Paris were you? Which big western cities specifically do you feel like it resembled?

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#17

Post by cm2187 »

afpx wrote: post #3

Is 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.)

I think like every city it has good parts and bad parts. Food is great, lots of stuff to do, employment is ok, the city is generally superb. But the population is irascible, the metro is a dark, overcrowded, grafiti covered, piss-stinking place, and the city is one gigantic traffic jam. Health and education is cheap, though state-run schools are in free fall and parents rush to put their kids in private schools. And the city is surrounded with poor neighbourhoods that are a ticking timebomb (with regular riots that are now spreading inside Paris).

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#18

Post by ketzo »

cm2187 wrote: post #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"

People always say this like a gotcha, but aren’t politicians supposed to do stuff that they think people will vote for?

Re: Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

#20

Post by brainwad »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #15
bko wrote: post #4

The 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.…

And yet Vienna is one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the world, with its masses of public housing, while major U.S. cities have homelessness crises and TV shows about house flipping for profit. Perhaps we should stop debating things based on the hokum of Econ 101 textbooks and look at what in the real world has actually worked (e.g. abolishing most forms of zoning, massive investments in public housing, rob…

Vienna has had the luxury of having had relatively little demand for housing for over a century. The population peaked in WWI and still hasn't recovered (it was 2.24m in 1916, 2.00m in 2023).
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