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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

#311

Post by digging »

its_ethan wrote: post #236
digging wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how "giving poor people comfort" is always actually a "power grab." I'm sure it does have political benefits for the mayor, but that's also a natural outcome of good policy . (Not the only one; often good policy actually has horrible backlash.) This comment could be expressing some true ideas but I don't find it trustworthy.

There's a line somewhere where "giving poor people comfort" goes from providing good and useful social services to essentially a bribe. Where that line is varies based on who you ask - for some it's student debt cancellation (a US thing), for others it's $1000+ subsidies for housing, other people may not see any service the government provides as a "bribe" of any sort. Caring about these bribes/"power grabs" is impor…

> There's a line somewhere where "giving poor people comfort" goes from providing good and useful social services to essentially a bribe.

I'm not sure I agree. Like giving out literal tons of candy and soda would be a political bribe but I wouldn't count it as "comfort"; it's poison. If you do think it's in the same category, I guess that would be my line - the aid should not be obviously harmful.

> you open the door for political leaders to say "you must vote for me or tolerate my bad behavior or else this goes away" ... Even if the method by which "this goes away" is that the opposing political group would be the one to remove the social service

But that's true of literally everything a government does, isn't it? It's the nature of power being centralized that if one person can force a change, their replacement can undo it. Even if the 1st person is completely earnest and never makes such a statement it is implicitly part of the process and people will make their votes with that expectation.

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

#312

Post by mytailorisrich »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #286
mytailorisrich wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can insist on looking at things through rose-tinted glasses or notpicking. But the facts I highlighted are inescapable... And I won't even get into how ghastly areas around the Eiffel Tower (for instance) have become with crime, beggars, etc everywhere.

You highlighted no facts, actually. The one fact was off by a factor of 2 and missing all context. What you call "nitpicking" is in fact the process of forming an opinion using facts and context. You could offer valuable insights, presumably being a Parisian, but instead you switch topics to beggars and crime. Oh well.

Debts ballooning and tax skyrocketing are facts. Everything I wrote are facts except of a small error in number but of course you chose to argue that the tax rise was 50% not 100% like if that made a difference to the point.

As I mentioned, rose-tinted glasses can be very strong, especially in people who have no insight but are looking for ideological reinforcement because, frankly, articles about how great Paris is in the NYT only serve that purpose, the readers will not know a thing about the actual situation.

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

#313

Post by dv_dt »

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…

There are failures of excise taxation to address the problem, in part due to political objections and blocks to taxation in the first place, while there are very long running examples of quality public housing making a competitive check on excess private rents in city markets.

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

#314

Post by s_dev »

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.

France already has some of the most densely populated cities in the world, Paris is #32. French cities feel less congested than the likes of US cities because it has better cycling infrastructure and public transport options. High population density is not a cure for the bias car infrastructure imposes on a city. So your recipe will need to take more in to account than just density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popul...

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

#315

Post by mrguyorama »

everforward wrote: post #242
corford wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone agrees there's a shortage: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-... A few choice paras (if people don't read the full article): "The forthcoming general election is once again likely to be dominated by claims about a housing shortage and a dire need to build more homes. Housebuilding is an article of faith across the political spectrum. The evidence, however, does not support this…

That argument presumes that housing is consumed the same way it was 70 years ago, and that the location of the housing is irrelevant. I know lots of places where there are empty, cheap houses. They're not close to any good jobs, the only Internet they have is 3G, and the schools suck because the county is poor (because no one wants to live there). I also suspect housing consumption per-capita is up as people move out…

>as people move out younger and marry later

What data do you have of people moving out younger? Everything I've seen is that younger generations are stuck living at their parent's house.

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

#316

Post by lostlogin »

stefs wrote: post #211
bluefirebrand wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people in a smaller area? Congestion doesn't just refer to car traffic Edit: think about crowded grocery stores and restaurants. Think community spaces like parks and libraries being packed all the time. Think about never being able to stop and get a coffee without waiting in a long line. Congestion

paris proper is already one of the densest areas in the world (and definitely in europe). when i lived there i wouldn't have noticed any problems with crowded grocery stores or community spaces compared to the comparatively low-density city i currently live in. there definitely were a lot more people in the streets, other cities feel deserted in comparison.

> i wouldn't have noticed any problems with crowded grocery stores or community spaces

There are so many of them. Every block seemed to have grocers and a small park.

Where I am it’s a massive supermarket every 5km, not a small one every 200m. You can shop different when it’s less hassle to go.

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

#317

Post by kazinator »

Jensson wrote: post #278
bluefirebrand wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people in a smaller area? Congestion doesn't just refer to car traffic Edit: think about crowded grocery stores and restaurants. Think community spaces like parks and libraries being packed all the time. Think about never being able to stop and get a coffee without waiting in a long line. Congestion

> Think community spaces like parks and libraries being packed all the time. They aren't, with dense housing there is so much room for parks that they are everywhere. I live in such a place, you go out and you mostly hear birds chirping, not people, it is a cheap suburb with high rise apartments next to public transit and everything you need in walkable distance including hospital and government services and hardware…

That's only true if we hold the population constant, and get everyone to scrunch together onto smaller lots built taller.

The main aim of density is to turn cities of a million into cities of ten million, not to just stick with a million and have birds chirping in parks everywhere you go.

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

#318

Post by jokethrowaway »

foldr wrote: post #139
seper8 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Some people just don't like cities. Google pretty much any major Western city and you can find comments complaining that it's dirty, riddled with crime and has too many immigrants. Paris is a real place, not a theme park.

Paris was much better 20 years ago; sure it still smelled like pee (no idea why it was and it is such a problem in Paris and literally nowhere else) but nothing was wrong.

I've been in 2019 and that's the last time Paris will ever see me: immigrants touching you trying to sell you stuff, people defecating in front of the supermarket in broad daylight, homeless camps, I've had a drugged up homeless jumping on me.

Shame, because the bakeries are top notch.

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

#319

Post by dandellion »

moconnor wrote: post #235
robertlagrant wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it can be rewarded by subsidised rents because people prefer to live in cities with a population of cool and arty people for the non-monetary benefits they bring to that society. Well, some people do. But everyone is paying for it, even if they'd rather save.

I guess ideally people who live in the city pay for such subsidies through various municipal taxes. People who do not value this policy and choose to live in a different city that aligns with their values would not pay for it. Everybody gets what they want.

I live in Southern Europe. A lot of the people I talk to (about half I would guesstimate) would rather live somewhere else but can't. Some would even prefer to move to a cheaper place but can't (work, elders, kids, mortgages, are some of the reason).

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

#320

Post by Aromasin »

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…

The same is happening in the UK. They've made car travel harder without making public transport any better (outside of London), which has just lowered the average person's productivity rather than making any headway into tackling the core issue of people getting from A to B quicker, cheaper, with less pollution.

They put in some heavy traffic restrictions in my local city of Oxford by closing off residential roads, forcing all traffic down "arterial" roads instead and putting parking restrictions all over the place. A year later, there are no fewer cars on the road or increased public transport usage; some local studies by the university confirmed that. People just spend more time stuck in traffic travelling longer distances.

It's like having a person with an injured leg and a missing one. Instead of giving the person a prosthesis to remove the load, they've just lopped the other off altogether, leaving them to crawl from place to place instead of hobble.

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