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

401–410 of 662 posts

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

#401

Post by gxs »

martythemaniak wrote: post #347
gxs wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Maybe the reason people accuse you of being "racist/classist/luddite" is because you're fearmongering, and they suspect these talking points are just a cover for looking out for your financial interest (keep increasing property prices), or keeping your community free from "others" or something. Why is this fearmongering? Because your figures are wildly, wildly out of touch with reality. If you legalize quadplexes by…

How is this fearmongering?

I can just as easily accuse you of moral righteousness, it's not a cover for anything, it's what's happening and with neither you nor I citing sources, it's just your word against mine.

Even then, come up with whatever cutesy numbers you want regarding housing, there are concrete numbers to point to for the side effects. Depressed teacher salaries is a well known issue. Overcrowding in schools is a real issue. Congestion and lack of public transportation is a real issue.

You can argue causality all you want, but if you leave out suddenly overpopulating areas as part of your equation, it's already flawed.

Lastly, you didn't read what I said.

I said it's fine to build more housing provides it comes with equal investments in infrastructure. You conveniently glossed over this fact because your solution of building taller still doesn't address it. So no, build taller isn't the only solution.

Again, reread what I said. I'm not against building more housing. Do you understand that? Again, I am not against building more housing.

All for building out public transportation, all for doing that is required to build more housing.

So either you take a slow and moderate approach to building more housing, which is fine, and will allow other infrastructure more time to catch up, or you make these investments up front with your larger scale development, as long as it's addressed it's all I'm saying.

Not sure what you're so up in arms about.

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

#402

Post by kbolino »

bombcar wrote: post #280
_3u10 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare and contrast with Paraguay where you can build whatever you want whenever and there is an ample supply of housing and very little in rental returns. Argentina is a great example. That said rent is also cheap in Buenos Aires. But I think that is due to the economy rather than rent control. You’re right in that affordable housing in any real sense would be MASSIVELY unpopular with voters. You’d be looking at cu…

The best that can be done is freezing house prices nominally (or close to it) and then let inflation take over as supply increases. People are really bad at working out constant dollars and have loans, as long as the nominal value is steady or going up slightly, they don't really care if the absolute value has dropped because of inflation.

What mechanisms would be effective at controlling asset prices under inflationary monetary regimes?

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

#403

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> 30 homes might approximate something like 60 cars and 60 children.

> Now instead of 30 homes, you have 20 + 10*4 = 60 homes.

Not building the houses doesn't make the people go away. What ends up happening is they have to commute in from somewhere else, and

> the road leading out your development had to accommodate 50 cars in the morning commute, now it has to handle more than 100

happens in a different road.

(sure, in the long run people learn not to have children in the West because living space is scarce, and your "doubled the amount of school children" problem goes away)

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

#404

Post by vladvasiliu »

bombcar wrote: post #292
vladvasiliu wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I completely agree. But somehow, I can't shake off the feeling that the unbelievable complexity in all things tax-related (and I include social programs therein) is a feature and not a bug (as in, it's intentional).

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

#405

Post by Phil_Latio »

TwoFerMaggie wrote: post #85
seper8 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Having lived in an actual third world country for a couple decades, I personally can't take statements such as "xx is becoming more like a third world country" seriously. I get the sentiment behind it though. If I compare, for example, my experience living in cities in China vs cities in Europe, I would argue that the relative freedom of movement forces residents in Europe to confront the inequality in their everyday…

This is stupid argument. He/She was talking about something relative, that is, relative to what it was 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. You can't come along and pick some worse example from another place.

With the same logic you could say wages don't need to increase for the next 20 years, or police can be defunded because more crime is not so important, because the 3rd world is off way worse...

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

#406

Post by jorvi »

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.

Cool cool, except the situation is dire and people need a roof over their head. Other priorities can wait.

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

#407

Post by pjc50 »

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…

The problem with taxing rent is you have to ask: do you also tax the "imputed rent" of owner-occupiers?

It's politically difficult to do so, but if you don't you end up with an even bigger barrier to mobility and entry to the property class as you have to pay more until you can save up for a deposit.

(I don't think you can make the tax incidence on renters zero)

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

#408

Post by AnimalMuppet »

amelius wrote: post #338
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people need to keep encountering not-rich people, rather than just live in a rich-person bubble. They need that, whether or not they want that.

Of course, because what does it mean to be rich if you can't show it off to poorer people. Note, by the way, that this inflicts real psychological damage, and perhaps we could also make the case that this should be financially compensated.

Not at all. The rich need it to maintain some humanity and empathy, not to boost their ego.

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

#409

Post by detourdog »

Amezarak wrote: post #218
detourdog wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at the numbers and think they demonstrate how much more efficient Austria is compared to any US state. I would prefer living in Austria to Mississippi.

Less than 5% of households in Austria have air conditioning, vs 93% in Mississippi. Granted it gets hot and humid in Mississippi, but the average summer highs in Austria is a sometimes-muggy ~27C and it will probably get worse with climate change - heat waves up to 40C have already happened. I'll take the AC and the other conveniences the Americans have, though it would be nice to have the social atmosphere Austria h…

I would rather compare education and healthcares since I value those more than A/C.

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

#410

Post by pjc50 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #174
Ragnarork wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, if your property is eligible for preemption, you have to declare that you intend to sell (at the price you wish) to the city, which can then tell you that - they don't intend to buy, in which case you can proceed with the sale - they buy at the price you've set - they make a counter-offer, which you have the right to refuse but then you also renounce to sell If there's a dispute on the price (especially in…

I tend to lean lefty, but this scheme makes me understand why libertarians want less government How much my home is worth should not be capped by whatever government thinks. That's bs If government is counter offering all of my neighbors and they are accepting it, then I am screwed. I either accept the government counter offer or I go to tribunal who will cite all of the government's recent purchases from my neighbor…

You've misunderstood. You can choose what your sale price is. You may or may not clear the market (find a buyer) at that price. But, if you do, you may have to sell to the government. You choose the price but not the buyer.

Paris property remains extremely expensive.

Post reply on HN