Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 662 posts

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

#181

Post by eszed »

krona wrote: post #141
TimPC wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you agree the city dies without people of all ages backgrounds and income levels what is your alternative proposal to subsidized housing. It's just a fact that some income levels are being priced out of the city and certain occupations may become entirely unavailable without some mechanism of solving that gap.

Either you willingly misunderstood my comment, or you are so absolutist in your thinking that you're incapable of understanding the concept of a limiting principle in social policy.

Whoa whoa, dude. You're being unnecessarily hostile. GP's question was a fair one, and not (by my reading) unkindly phrased. Even if I'm wrong about that, personal attacks aren't welcome contributions: flag and move on.

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

#182

Post by jeffbee »

mumblemumble wrote: post #33

My understanding is that excise taxation is generally agreed upon as the preferred method for governments to manipulate the market, both because it incurs fewer deadweight losses and because it tends to actually work better. So, what if we get rid of all these complicated rent control and rent freezes and affordable housing schemes, and instead just implement a rent tax, to be paid by the landlord, and make it progre…

People who don't understand market pricing are against rent taxes because they think landlords can pass them through.

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

#183

Post by 93po »

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…

Paris syndrome is fairly over-hyped. From wiki:

"Although the BBC reported in 2006 that the Japanese embassy in Paris had a "24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock",[4] the Japanese embassy states[clarification needed] no such hotline exists[clarification needed].[9][10] Also in 2006, Miyuki Kusama, of the Japanese embassy in Paris, told The Guardian "There are around 20 cases a year of the syndrome and it has been happening for several years", and that the embassy had repatriated at least four Japanese citizens that year.[11]"

Out of a million people who are Japanese that visit Paris every year, a dozen of them having shock at the reality of the city isn't that noteworthy honestly, and I imagine there are more Americans that do this than Japanese people.

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

#184

Post by kcorbitt »

rcpt wrote: post #165
bragr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately you have more people coming and going from each building, which means more people on the streets, and more demand for all utilities and public services. Building up doesn't build out those other things. That's why you have things like Air Rights in NYC to limit building.

People aren't very noisy. Cars are

I don't know... I lived in Barcelona for two years recently and had pretty bad luck. In addition to one-off incidents, some consistent noise issues we had:

- The Pakistani restaurant below our apartment would regularly host receptions/weddings until 2-3am. The sendoff typically involved groups of 20-30 people banging large drums loudly and singing as the happy couple walked out and were driven away.

- We had a neighborhood drunk who frequently (multiple times a week) would wander down the street singing Flamenco-style ballads about his unfortunate love life. My assumption was that the ex he was singing to lived on the street? Anyway, he had quite a voice and was great at projecting.

- The building behind us was shorter than ours and our rear balcony faced their rooftop. In the summer one of the apartments there would semi-regularly hold parties until 1am.

Cars were an occasional issue too, but people were a much bigger problem in that particular neighborhood. That said, I've also lived in dense neighborhoods with none of those problems, so maybe better norms/regulations are the answer... but existing noise ordinances in the US are rarely enforced.

Beyond the noise issues though I did enjoy the convenience/amenities that a dense neighborhood provides!

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

#185

Post by bugglebeetle »

olivierduval wrote: post #163

The article is quite... disappointing for a french Parisian. Let's make things clear: so called "mixed society" is actually a mix of "friends of the Mayor and allies" and poor-enough people that will vote for the so-called socialist Mayor. It's not about having a philosophical or idealogical view of society, only a practical view of election (a kind of "gerrymanding" if this concept is more understandable for US). Th…

By American standards, these would be eminently “intelligent and humanistic leaders.” NYC is ran by a crooked cop, who is under investigation for taking bribes from Turkey, while slashing the budget for schools and libraries so he can give more money to his “constantly defrauding the government” police gang. LA is such a wildly corrupt city, it’s hard to pick where to start, but several city council members were just caught on tape trying to explicitly screw over renters, rig an election against one of their left wing opponents, all while making racist comments to boot. The city also takes in billions in tax revenue for “affordable housing” schemes that go almost entirely to lining the pockets of cronies and party insiders through various fronts and nonprofits.

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

#186

Post by bezier-curve »

hollerith wrote: post #171
rsynnott wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The higher the density, the more vehicles get in each others way. If your reply is that the vehicles are not needed because everyone can just walk: it takes more energy and more carbon emissions to walk a mile than it takes to drive a vehicle a mile -- and that's before we get to transporting things other than people. (Growing food is very energy intensive; walking burns food.)

> it takes more energy and more carbon emissions to walk a mile than it takes to drive a vehicle a mile

Do you have a source for this? Sounds questionable.

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

#187

Post by vladvasiliu »

digging wrote: post #128
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.

Light pollution is relatively easily solved, there's just not much will to do so. Noise pollution is best solved by reducing car-dependency which is a non-starter in most North American cities; I can't speak for Europe but I understand Paris to have undertaken a serious revolution in purging cars within the past decade.

> I understand Paris to have undertaken a serious revolution in purging cars within the past decade.

The issue is that they have mainly increased the friction of using cars in the city (reducing lanes, restricting parking, converting avenues to one-way) all the while the public transit enhancements are running late, and whatever lines were already there saw a drop in service quality.

So increasing density would require a major improvement in public transit. Note, however, that the city of Paris proper already has one of the highest densities in the world.

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

#188

Post by charles_f »

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…

Building taller is the equivalent of building more lanes. The main problem with housing shortage and infrastructure congestion in Paris is that everything is centralized and concentrated on Paris, and thus everyone want to be there

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

#189

Post by ericmcer »

jvanderbot wrote: post #173
smeej wrote: post #169

> The program has allowed Mr. Chaillou and his wife to raise their two boys in the city. But he knows that the future of social housing will always face at least one big challenge: “The problem is that once you get in, you never want to leave.” I think this is the reason so many in the U.S. are skeptical of/resistant to such plans. Why work your butt off for 10 years to get to a place where you can afford a nice dwel…

> instinctively repugnant To some. In very-red areas that I have relatives, they're happy to do a food drive, make donations, help pay for weddings or funerals, or show up to help repair houses. When you have 100 cousins and 10 brothers, this is a viable option. They frequent each others businesses, work on interconnected industries, and in general help out however they can. It's not instinctively repugnant to help ,…

I think it is most repugnant when you are working really hard and (very slowly) building your life up.

It was really easy to be charitable when I was young and working meaningless jobs for $15/hr and I had my whole life ahead, and it will probably be easy when I am retired and no longer feel the strain of 50/hr workweeks.

For now though it is brutal watching taxes eat huge chunks of your income so they can spend flagrantly.

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

#190

Post by ReptileMan »

rcpt wrote: post #165
bragr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately you have more people coming and going from each building, which means more people on the streets, and more demand for all utilities and public services. Building up doesn't build out those other things. That's why you have things like Air Rights in NYC to limit building.

People aren't very noisy. Cars are

I have never met a car that had a fight with her spouse that woke up the whole block at 3AM
Post reply on HN