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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

#471

Post by chaorace »

staringback wrote: post #301
Aunche wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government actually spends more per capita on healthcare than the UK or Japan despite it not being universal. We're terribly inefficient with its social spending because have politics is so adversarial and nobody is interested in doing any due diligence.

> We're terribly inefficient with its social spending because have politics is so adversarial and nobody is interested in doing any due diligence. And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the United States having a very unhealthy population and pays doctors the highest salaries in the world.

Chicken, meet egg.

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

#472

Post by CalRobert »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #422
mpweiher wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [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.

Sure, if you live in the city proper. 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…

For what it's worth, I got a folding bike (a Brompton) to address the storage issues you cite.

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

#473

Post by othello »

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…

We are already the densest OECD city by quite a margin! (22,000 per sqkm in the inner 20 district, twice that of Manhanttan and 3 times that of Tokyo - and still 8,600 in the Petite Couronne, which includes 8 million people)

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

#474

Post by bombcar »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #341
Aromasin wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, f…

I feel like the best way to make getting from A to B quicker is for A and B to be closer together. Which makes walking or biking more practical and you don’t have to spend as much money on public transit.

A and B being closer works for cars, too.

A 15 minute walk is 2 minutes by car, five by bike.

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

#475

Post by nemo44x »

rafaelero wrote: post #56
bedobi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think like you but no longer do. A city NEEDS to have people of all ages, backgrounds, income levels etc in it to not die. Yes those people who live in that most central subsidized housing are in some ways winning a lottery ticket, and the real policy is to build a lot more housing as close to the city as possible. But Paris are doing that! AND adding new public transit etc etc. This multifaceted approach i…

What do you mean cities need it not to die? Would you say Monaco is dead? What about Zurich? Oslo?

I don't get it either. Cities were dying for decades until people with money decided to move back into them and then they began to thrive. In fact, the actual data shows that as a city becomes more expensive it becomes more desirable and attracts more people and the city begins to grow. Places that were once considered off limits become spaces that are coveted. It's a flywheel that brings more and more prosperity. The best way to ruin that is to introduce masses of poor people to these areas. We did this in the starting in the late 1950's and the cities began to empty out because of the crime that came with it.

As the poor constituency builds greater numbers they attract politicians that promise them things by stealing from those with money. This in turn chases those people away and the city is left poorer and poorer and becomes worse and worse. Once nice areas become undesirable and decay sets in.

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

#476

Post by TeaBrain »

justin66 wrote: post #231
samatman wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to most major American cities, and Toronto, and D.F., as well as Paris and Brussels. What Paris and Brussels have in common with D.F., which they do not share with either the major American cities or Toronto, is police open-carrying machine guns.

I assume by "machine guns" you mean rifles, and by "open carrying" you mean "carrying." (there's no way to carry a rifle concealed) I have no idea what "D.F." is. Another response above mentioned that American cops generally keep the long gun in the car. Since today we've got National Guardsmen with rifles in the NY subways acting as police, this conversation all feels a little tone deaf, but it's fair enough to poin…

DF is an abbreviation of Distrito Federal, a name for Mexico City. It was changed officially in 2016 to just Ciudad de Mexico/CDMX.

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

#477

Post by chaorace »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #362
pas wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how could/would they not? everything is paid by the renters, and if the price is not high enough (to turn a risk-weighted profit) it will be removed from the market. (if there's a high enough vacancy tax and/or security costs against squatting, then eventually it will be sold. which is a one time boon for the market, but it ends up crowding out new developments for a while, and altogether this just leads to crazy wai…

Rental supply is fixed in the short term. Therefore landlords have no pricing power unless they are colluding assuming theyre trying to maximize profit and not giving tenants a deal. Landlord goal is to rent every unit for maximum amount, that means renters set the price by competing with each other.

Kind of the same deal as rent control in a lot of ways, right? What you get is a short-term suppression of market rates that slowly get internalized by the supply-side until prices more/less return to the original equilibrium

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

#478

Post by nemo44x »

Ragnarork wrote: post #26
bko wrote: post #4

The problem with charging below market prices for anything is that it necessarily leads to a mismatch of supply and demand. So the question is how do you allocate that supply? One way is to have hidden costs. This could range from straight up bribes, to paid consultants to fill out a lot of forms or talk to the right people, to just knowing someone Another way is a lottery which benefits a tiny percentage of people.…

> So the question is how do you allocate that supply? To adress this specific question for Paris, they put an upper limit on your income to rent specific housing with lower rent. I'll scale down your caricature of an example though, the offers you can see are usually 15% to 20% under market price, not 75% like you seem to imply. Not exactly sure what is your point otherwise, the difference in terms of giving someone…

> To adress this specific question for Paris, they put an upper limit on your income to rent specific housing with lower rent.

Why would you ever want to incentive people to not earn more money? Stay poor and we'll give you a house - sounds like a bribe.

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

#479

Post by verisimi »

bedobi wrote: post #452
verisimi wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. I'm not worried. I just it's funny think it's funny how people live to line up on the side of the unelected global governance system and think that voting matters and believe everything they were taught in school/on TV etc. "I'm choosing to give up my car, and you will choose that too!"

yeah, the default mode of human transportation is to drive a single occupancy private automobile, for every trip, everywhere, including in dense urban environments, and anyone who thinks otherwise is brainwashed by the globalists if you prefer walking, riding a bike or transit you're so brainwashed! wake up and listen to the truth the automobile and fossil fuel industries are trying to get out there!

But I didn't say any of that. Walk or ride - do whatever you like. But in the new world, one option will have been removed - driving. I'm not cheering the loss of that. I'm for free choice. You seem to be arguing in favour of removing other peoples' choices. And you think that's right! Who made you (or the Paris mayor) king/queen of the world?

I'm also saying, artificially creating issues by removing roads, making them one way etc, in order to create terrible traffic, in order to then justify removing cars completely, is a form of manipulative abuse, being inflicted on people by government. I'm not going to cheer abusive behaviour.

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

#480

Post by alecthomas »

othello wrote: post #473
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…

We are already the densest OECD city by quite a margin! (22,000 per sqkm in the inner 20 district, twice that of Manhanttan and 3 times that of Tokyo - and still 8,600 in the Petite Couronne, which includes 8 million people)

Manhattan has a population density of 28,154 per sqkm according to Wikipedia?
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