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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

#381

Post by jisaacstone »

kazinator wrote: post #348
not2b wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the aim is to have that one million people occupy a smaller area, so that there's more space for parks, open space, farms, etc.

Sorry, which density advocacy groups have this nice idea as their literal goal? Density is the population of a metropolitan area divided by its total area. Not population divided by the footprint area of residential lots. Density advocacy is all about accommodating population influx; it is really burgeoning population advocacy.

Every group I know of that actually advocates for density does have this as their goal. It is a bit odd that the external reputation is that they do not, to the point that parallel orgs sometimes appear advocating for pretty much the same things but "with more emphasis on livability" or similar.

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

#382

Post by epolanski »

GardenLetter27 wrote: post #373

Public housing is terrible - why should the government steal my money (income tax) to pay to house criminals and drug dealers nearby which devalues my property and endangers my life and family? We just need a true Free Market - let people build and invest how they want, where they want. And ensure that everyone has a stake in the property they own and the area they live in.

Because as a society we progress at the pace our weakest progress.

We don't say China moved ahead because the rich got richer, but because it lifted hundred of millions from poverty.

And if anything, a poor social net tends to create more dangers, not less.

When people have no roof, no jobs, no help, they will turn into criminals. Hell if I need to eat, or worse, I need to feed my family, I could not care less about becoming a criminal too. Zero.

I've seen the dystopia of private neighborhoods with gates and security, the ghettos, the crumbling neighborhoods, endless tents anywhere you look in many major US cities.

We don't want this in Europe.

I'd rather pay more taxes that help the weakest, not just taxes to punish them and send them to jail. A society with more desperate people makes my life worse, not better just because I can find a more isolated/secure prison where I can avoid looking at them.

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

#383

Post by Aspos »

gxs wrote: post #331
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.

This is a huge problem with housing in general that is mostly ignored. Let people build 4 units where today it's zone for 1, and if you disagree, you're an out of touch racist/classist/luddite who is just not a visionary and can't embrace the future. Surely nothing bad is going to happen when you take a subdivision with 30 homes and take just 10 of those and turn them into quadplexes. 30 homes might approximate somet…

It is not a hard problem to solve and was/is being solved all around the world. If a developer is building not 60 homes but 6000 homes then they can be tasked to build a school, a few kindergartens, a fire station, cafes, grocery shop, a few bus stops and plenty of individual and communal parking spaces.

Going from single family homes to quadplexes does not solve the problem, build taller!

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

#384

Post by OkGoDoIt »

s_dev wrote: post #314
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.

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…

How does that linked Wikipedia page not contain any cities in China, which in my experience are more dense than just about anywhere else in the world?

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

#385

Post by mactrey »

circlefavshape wrote: post #328
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.)

A 155lb human burns 177kcal when walking at 2.5mph[1], so that's 71kcal per mile There are 340kcal in 100g of wholemeal wheat flour[2], so walking one mile takes around 21g of wheat Wheat flour creates carbon emissions of 0.80 kg CO₂e/kg [3], so walking one mile creates carbon emissions of 170 g CO₂e Driving a vehicle powered by gasoline produces tailpipe emissions of around 400g per mile [4] [1] https://www.healthli…

A car driver could easily eat the same amount of food as a walker, the extra calories would be stored as fat. This also ignores upfront CO2 output from assembling and delivering the car and increased CO2 output from maintaining car infrastructure vs. pedestrian infrastructure. Not to mention numerous other externalities.

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

#386

Post by kazinator »

jisaacstone wrote: post #381
kazinator wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, which density advocacy groups have this nice idea as their literal goal? Density is the population of a metropolitan area divided by its total area. Not population divided by the footprint area of residential lots. Density advocacy is all about accommodating population influx; it is really burgeoning population advocacy.

Every group I know of that actually advocates for density does have this as their goal. It is a bit odd that the external reputation is that they do not, to the point that parallel orgs sometimes appear advocating for pretty much the same things but "with more emphasis on livability" or similar.

Really? Is this documented somewhere? What is the typical proposal for how they plan to keep the population constant, after creating all that space? I've not heard of this. It's always about how many more millions of people could live here if we rearranged things.

I've never heard of a density advocacy group being opposed to population growth. Density advocacy is practically synonymous with at least acceptance (if not advocacy) of urban population growth. Population growth is in fact like a sacred cow. You must never blame any urban problems on population growth; the cause is always not enough vertical build.

Is there any example of a density anywhere going on record that the metropolis in this local neck of the woods should somehow say no to more people, rather than building more?

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

#387

Post by UncleEntity »

dragonwriter wrote: post #372
HDThoreaun wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> healthcare systems in the world most performance metrics improve with more regulation but not less This claim is almost always because american lifetime expectancies are bad. But thats because Americans are unhealthy, not because our healthcare is bad. Do you have a different reason to make this claim?

“Americans are unhealthy” is an outcome of a bad healthcare system, not an excuse for it.

I have 100% government provided healthcare (aside from dental) and I won't go see a doctor unless I'm literally going to die or want them to pull cancer off my arm. My diet would probably horrify you. Healthy as a horse except for another bit of suspected skin cancer I need to get checked out.

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

#388

Post by littlestymaar »

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

Paris is already among the densest places on earth.

The problem comes from the excessive centralization of practically everything France has, in Paris, leading to an overpopulation of the entire Ile de France region, which drive prices in Paris itself to the roof.

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

#389

Post by ljsprague »

rsynnott wrote: post #117
TacticalCoder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm going to guess Paris had more actual Frenchmen in it one or two centuries ago.

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

#390

Post by mactrey »

kcorbitt wrote: post #184
rcpt wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 neighb…

As you note, no two dense neighborhoods are the same. Those experiences would be rare in Tokyo or Kuala Lumpur. I would say that cultural norms dominate density when it comes to explaining late-night partying.
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