Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by digging » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:42 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #187

digging wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 requi…

That is unfortunate but realistically there's never going to be a political overhaul of that scale where all moves are perfectly synced. As long as they're actually working on the transit enhancements it seems completely acceptable to me (in the abstract; I'm not a Parisian)

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

#292

Post by bombcar » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:42 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #216

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…

> And then once you have it, there's even less incentive to try to "move up" from there, because there's now a cliff in front of you. You have to make the whole jump in one go, because if you only take incremental steps, you lose eligibility for your subsidies. I don't know about other places, but I think this is a major issue in France. Many things stop altogether if you get above a certain limit of income. So many…

This is much easier to deal with in "money payments" (you just make sure that every dollar extra you earn doesn't "cost" you more than fifty cents by having graduated wind down of payments) but can be much harder with things like programs that give you actual things, like housing or food.

It can still be implemented (not by saying "if you make more money, you'll only get 29 days a month of this house" but making the cash subsidy for the housing explicit and able to be wound down) but it really has to be thought through.

You really want some way for lower income people to move to middle income without having to give up their neighborhood, friends, everything. But if the neighborhood is entirely "working poor" and "filthy rich" you can't.

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

#293

Post by kelipso » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:43 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #250

bombcar wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's effectively doing just that - tax the entire city (which taxes are usually mainly paid by the richer people) and use the taxes to subsidize poor people. So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. It should work.

> So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. That's a good characterization of what's happening. But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?

Everyone needs service workers. Even service workers need service workers.

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

#294

Post by bombcar » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:44 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #213

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…

> American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck Think it's more surprising how little of it is down to luck. Even working slightly harder reaps rewards quickly that outweigh the extra work. It's most just most people are not even putting in the minimum.

Luck controls the biggest swings in some cases, but diligent hard work covers for quite a bit of the small changes.

Some people are just really bad at diligent hard work and lack the self control needed. The question is how to handle that without causing other issues.

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

#295

Post by resonantjacket5 » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:47 PM UTC

bezier-curve wrote: post #186

hollerith wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem that this is the wrong measure to use emissions per mile, when it's really about emissions per trip.

A car flying down the freeway uses less emissions per mile, but if one is traveling 50 miles versus just walking to down the block the former is using a lot more emissions even if it is more efficient per mile.

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

#296

Post by bombcar » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:48 PM UTC

dugmartin wrote: post #289

cultureswitch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You've left out a few things the landlord does and the risks they assume (at least here in the USA, I'm not sure about Paris): - mortgage costs - property taxes - insurance - utilities - repairs - maintenance - savings for large future capital outlays (new roof, furnace, etc) - renters not paying - empty rental units - loss of investment opportunities of the capital locked up in the building - possible loss of all in…

Landlords (in the USA at least) are wildly subsidizing renters, because they're so hungry for the appreciation benefits.

You can test this anywhere the rental prices are below about 1% of the purchase price.

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

#297

Post by bombcar » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:50 PM UTC

kelipso wrote: post #293

rayiner wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. That's a good characterization of what's happening. But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?

Everyone needs service workers. Even service workers need service workers.

My service workers have service workers who go to the market FOR them!

Wait, that's actually what we have now.

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

#298

Post by sylware » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

Singapore? 80% of public housing? true?

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

#299

Post by romafirst3 » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:52 PM UTC

ReptileMan wrote: post #190

rcpt wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Cars get into wrecks all the time :) Seriously though we just normalise it. If there is a car accident on your street everyone is awake. How about cop cars and ambulances racing by sirens blaring at all hours. People blast horns way louder than anyone will shout.

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

#300

Post by yardie » Wed, Mar 20, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

6bb32646d83d wrote: post #137

Unfortunately it means it's extremely hard to live in Paris if you're middle class. If you're upper middle class/rich, you can rent/buy. If you're poor, you get a chance to get public housing. If you're middle class, too bad for you.

I'm middle class and lived in Paris. I had rich friends and poor friends. My rich friends owned flats that occupied entire floors of a building. My poor friends got whatever social housing was available. And my middle class friends rented or bought a place in the suburbs with more space. We owned, a relatively small by American standards 55sqm, 3F, flat in the city center. My middle class friends could also rent the same size flat on their salaries but none of them wanted to. They liked their space and garden.

Their is give and take to everything in life. I don't think it's hard to live in Paris if you're in the middle class, but you certainly won't feel middle class doing it.