421–430 of 662 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to neglect the cost of it. The city is nearly bankrupt, parisians will pay for this with high taxes for a very long time.
> parisians will pay for this with high taxes for a very long time Is that a bad thing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> [increase friction for cars...no improvement to public transport] Hmm...aren't you forgetting something? Last I checked, Paris had a veritable bicycling revolution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Paris Le Plan vélo de Paris (2015-2020) doubled bicycle lanes to 1000km and increased ridership (apparently already high?) by 50% or more. The current plan is to add another 180km and make Paris 100% cyclable.
But what that doesn't mention: the bike sharing schemes are hit-and-miss. I usually commute each way a good hour before rush-hour traffic, so I have a good probability of finding a usable bike. But during rush hour? Fat chance.
Oh, you're going to point out that there's a scheme helping you purchase your own bike? Indeed. What are you going to do with it, though? At home, you may be able to find a spot to park in your flat (it's not my case). You wanna leave it outside? Sure, go ahead, if you don't care about finding it in one piece in the morning. Ditto for the other end of your commute.
There's also the fact that bike sharing schemes only work in Paris proper and adjacent towns. If you want to commute in from further away [0], you better be ready to ride in traffic and have your own bike, assuming you don't live that far. If you're lucky enough to live in one of the places served by the new metro, it's still not ready (but should be real soon now - fingers crossed).
So sure, having more dedicated bike lanes (and some of the new ones are actually physically separate from car lanes) is great. Although sometimes the layout is... puzzling? Bike lanes switching from the left to the right side of the roads, narrow two-way lanes (Bd Sébastopol), etc.
But I wouldn't exactly call it a "revolution" in practice. My commute goes from the east to the northwest of the city, around 7 km. Of these, only around 1 km is a bike lane separate from the traffic. And it's ridiculously narrow. Bonus points for it being painted with a slippery paint for some reason (look up Boulevard Magenta). The rest is half on bike lanes shared with a bus, the other half on regular roads with no bike lane at all.
---
[0] Don't forget that Paris proper is home to ~2M people, while the Paris Region has ~12M.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In general, I'm against govt interventions like this, but in the case of housing, I agree with you. For a society to function in a healthy way, it can't be divided in social class "gettos". It is the responsibility of the State to spend public funds to avoid that. This is not about fairness and equality. It's about the long term survival of a society.
Even further: extremely affordable technology now exists such that the leaders of our "democracies" could ask the public's opinions on such matters in a wide variety of fine-grained ways, or even better: facilitate a high quality moderated public conversation that actually involves the public on these and other matters. This may even be a requirement for a healthy society. Unfortunately, current styles of "democracy"…
this would be a disaster
take how Hidalgo is deprioritizing private automobiles on the streets of Paris
most of the public was passionately and intensely opposed to that, but she did it anyway
now, people can't imagine ever going back to how it was before - families being able to walk and ride bikes along the Seine and Rue de Rivoli is too nice
= asking for peoples opinion on stuff in lots of cases is just going to result in locking in status quo because people don't really know what they want, but they're usually pro status quo and opposed to change
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant I think the first part of this statement is crucial to the full meaning. It is not about charity[0]. It is about redistribution of wealth by force is repugnant. [0] This 2022 reports states US is #3 in charity (giving). https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-resea...
Ah yes, the famous "actually americans donate a lot" nonsense. That report is based on SELF REPORTED donations. IE, giving Joel Olstein $10k to help him buy a new private jet is considered "charitable giving" and is also considered more charitable than if you just chat up the Asylum family that was just settled next door and help them get integrated into the local community to help them network and find work and frie…
For instance, the US government allocates $7 billion+ annually to the UN World Food Programme [1]. The next biggest donor? $1.7 billion. It's not even close.
And no, $150 million in claimed charitable giving in 2020 is provably false. One ultra-rich individual alone is enough to top that figure.
P.S: I'm not an American.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 no…
Have other metropolitan areas do the same so there is no net migration.
> 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?
There is a difference between refusing new people and having population growth as a goal. People exist, they have to live somewhere, increasing density increases the housing stock and gives them somewhere to live.
If one city is hostile to giving them somewhere to live and another isn't, people might move from the hostile place to the amiable place. But the solution to this is obviously to make the other city less hostile, not to make sure that all cities are maximally hostile.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both the fight against car dependency and the housing policy in TFA have been spearheaded by the current mayor, Anne Hidalgo
[flagged]
if you stay in the city, the globalists WILL come for you, they WILL put you in 15 minute cities where everything you need is easily available within walking, bicycling or high quality transit distance (oh no!)
> 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 ,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldnt be completely surprised if it were true, though I lack the background and willpower to try to get an actual answer lol. My thought process is that food also implies some level of driving (delivering pesticides/fertilizer, driving crops away), the fertilizers are fossil-fuel derived, and if you count the sun it takes to grow crops to eat (or worse, as feed for meat). The whole chain is pretty inefficient, to…
A human walking is absurdly efficient, as anyone who's ever tried to outrun a bad diet can tell you. Running or walking a mile burns ~100 extra calories relative to sitting on your couch. Unless you're putting active effort into not doing so, most diets fluctuate by far more than that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am sure. Think about it for a minute and you'll see why
I don't. Could you explain what you mean? Here's what I found: the formula given in the article is "calories burned = BMR x METs/24 x hour" But the METs for lying quietly is 1. The author certainly forgot to subtract 1 from METs in that equation, and could easily have also forgotten to do so when calculating the given numbers. https://pacompendium.com/inactivity/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?
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