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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

#111

Post by samatman »

justin66 wrote: post #89
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.)

> except for the police walking around with assault weapons So you've never been to North America. Where is it you're comparing Paris to, such that it seems like every other big western city?

I've been to most major American cities, and Toronto, and D.F., as well as Paris and Brussels.

What Paris and Brussels have in common with D.F., which they do not share with either the major American cities or Toronto, is police open-carrying machine guns.

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

#112

Post by cultureswitch »

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.…

When someone rents a small apartment in the center of Paris for 4k on the private market in all likeliness they're paying more than 3k of pure rent profit to the owner.

The rent can be levied by the owner however the owner actually did not provide any of the investment or labor required to give the apartment the value it has. The apartment has value not because of anything inside the apartment or the building. It has value due to its location, something that the owner has no control over and did not spend a single penny to make more attractive.

This is obviously a huge inefficiency in the economy. Why should someone profit from the attractiveness of a location they haven't actually built? This is a positive externality.

Part of the solution of our huge housing crisis across most developed cities is obviously that there should just be more housing. This would bring prices down overall. However, new construction is extremely difficult, and that is due the in part to lobbies of wealthy owners which seek to keep prices high by maintaining scarcity.

Turning private rent housing into public housing is a good way to eliminate the economic inefficiency of rent in that one case and it also drives the price of nearby housing down too, as the private market has to compete with the public offering.

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

#113

Post by rsynnott »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #106
mebazaa wrote: post #34

As a Parisian, who is generally angry at the city’s housing policy (build taller!), I find the public housing of the past few years to be a great achievement. In general, public housing sits on the outer edges of Paris, but the city has been agressive in reconverting buildings in posher neighborhoods. It doesn’t really lead to reduced rent (because no additional supply), but it decreases social segregation. That alon…

> build taller As someone who lives in an area with plenty of high-density residential buildings, I can attest that this is a perfect recipe for creating congested cities with such intense light and noise pollution.

It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?

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

#114

Post by mistermann »

rmbyrro wrote: post #70
bedobi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

In general, I'm against govt interventions like this, but in the case of housing, I agree with you. For a society to function in a healthy way, it can't be divided in social class "gettos". It is the responsibility of the State to spend public funds to avoid that. This is not about fairness and equality. It's about the long term survival of a society.

Even further: extremely affordable technology now exists such that the leaders of our "democracies" could ask the public's opinions on such matters in a wide variety of fine-grained ways, or even better: facilitate a high quality moderated public conversation that actually involves the public on these and other matters. This may even be a requirement for a healthy society.

Unfortunately, current styles of "democracy" not only do not do this, they instead engage in deceptive propaganda to make it appear like they do this and more (how you can tell: observe how people praise "democracy", based on clearly silly memes). I often wonder if the quality of these institutions in an absolute sense (as opposed to a relative comparison to literal fascist dictatorships, the only other option dontchaknow) may have something to do with some people thinking they should be eliminated and replaced, a sentiment which is always and without exception represented as being dumb/etc.

Note also that these institutions also control school curriculum, which "denies" the public the skills needed to realize any of this is going on, how utterly riddled with error and deceit/delusion the public conversation is, etc.

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

#115

Post by mebazaa »

lou1306 wrote: post #91
spaniard89277 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paris needs a new center. Like many other cities, build more places where people want to flock so you get pressure off the center. Most new developments are in dead areas because nobody wants to spend time surrounded by ugly, bland and functional architecture.

The problem is, when you are competing with the center of Paris, it is pretty hard to build a compelling alternative. Say what you will about the streets being loud, chaotic and dirty, the area between the II, III, V and VI arrondissements (Latin quarter, Pantheon, Beaubourg, Jardin du Luxembourg, Tuilleries, Notre Dame, Place des Vosges) is still just swell.

Yeah, and also you have the problem of job location. The regional government says they want to make the Paris area more "polycentric", but there’s a limit to that if jobs are heavily concentrated in one area. We are racing to open more subway lines, and that will surely help, but at some point, raw distance will remain a bottleneck.

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

#116

Post by marcosdumay »

ketzo wrote: post #18
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?

Politicians aren't supposed to manipulate the voters set by moving people around by decree.

That said, city planning is a complex thing so there's no easy answer to whether they are doing this.

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

#117

Post by rsynnott »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #108
thuuuomas wrote: post #94

Why was this headline changed in such an editorializing way? “Mixed society” is a loaded term not present in the original headline.

Yup this makes no sense. Note that the original is also wrong: "How does Paris stays Paris..." . To me Paris is not Paris at all anymore. The government is in damage control before the olympic games and shall try to hide that Paris is not Paris anymore but Paris honestly became a sad thing to see. There are many tourists having an actual shock and it can be really bad: if I'm not mistaken japanese even have a hotline…

But, I mean... Paris was _never_ that fantasy version of Paris, or anything like it? Though arguably it's a lot more like it today than it was, say, a century ago, or two centuries.

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

#118

Post by dv_dt »

rsynnott wrote: post #113
rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> build taller As someone who lives in an area with plenty of high-density residential buildings, I can attest that this is a perfect recipe for creating congested cities with such intense light and noise pollution.

It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?

It causes congestion if the city refuses to invest in public transportation - which is more a problem in US cities - though some European cities could be behind on keeping up with changes to different degrees

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

#119

Post by derelicta »

Deprogrammer9 wrote: post #40

If the USA didn't endlessly fund war then maybe they could invest in their cities & infrastructure more. Probably not going to happen anytime soon by the looks of things.

The Empire needs to wage war in order to expand its reach and thus sell its goods there/exploit the local labour, otherwise it falls.

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

#120

Post by kspacewalk2 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #100
bedobi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Subsidies always have a cost on public finances. In Paris' case, the financial situation is bad and getting worse with a debt on track to reach EUR10 billion. So it seems to me that Paris is borrowing like there is no tomorrow. This usually does not end well.

It entirely depends on how the money is spent. If Paris is making investments that will enable it to substantially grow its tax base, it's a good prudent strategy, certainly better than the supposedly more fiscally responsible do-nothing strategy that can just as easily lead to financial ruin as irresponsible drunken-sailor spending.
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