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Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

nytimes.com

491–500 of 662 posts

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

#491

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.

How do people deal with being sweaty at work? Do offices generally have showers?

You wear wicking clothing, don't ride too hard and change into work clothes in the office bathroom.

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

#492
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.

It's literally been dubbed the City of Light and the highest density cities in France already. It's not even close.

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

#493
post #452

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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 th…

I fundamentally disagree with every single word and every thought that led you there

> 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?

Akshully it's all other modes of transportation that have been exterminated by the private single occupancy automobile. Cities levelled and the entire planet polluted to make way for it, and walking, cycling and transit made not just unsafe and unpleasant but literally impossible and illegal, and everyone forced to pay insane amounts to subsidize roads that don't make any profit. Thankfully, in Paris and a handful of other cities, leaders are recognizing this and working on making walking, riding a bike and transit legal, safe and enjoyable again. So if you and other ardent motorists want to continue to exercise your free choice to drive, you will no longer be able to do so at the expense of everyone else, you will have to pay your fair share for roads and parking and accept that all space no longer belongs to you by default.

> 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.

Roads create traffic and viable alternatives to driving reduces it. Any child, idiot or PhD urban planner and traffic engineer can tell you this.

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

#494
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Delivery also lets you have more smaller stores carrying the 80% you need regularly, and the 20% that is less common can come via delivery in a day or two.

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

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its outright the worst possible place in whole Europe to be rich I guess it's a good thing Europe has free movement! They are free to be rich in Amsterdam, Berlin or Brussels. If the wealth is generated in France, then they should put up with the French inconveniences.

Don’t worry I’m upper middle class and roughly 75% of my salary goes straight to taxes while everything that’s state provided (schools, hospitals, security, infrastructure) just collapses.

In France? How when the top tax rate is 45%?

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

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never met a car that had a fight with her spouse that woke up the whole block at 3AM

You need better walls, aren't there standards that apartment walls need to be sound proof?

Remember that in the US at least, many dense buildings are incredibly old, from before soundproofing and such was really common.

Living in a 1900s building in Brooklyn is vastly different from living in a 2020 building in Manhattan.

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

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as point A and point B become closer together, it takes less time to get there by car and then people do it more often. Unless traffic congestion eats the time savings, implying that there is high traffic congestion.

There's a finite number of trips people can practically do - just because they live next door to work doesn't mean they'll commute more than twice each day (close enough people will return for home for lunch perhaps). As traffic and travel times lessen, people do travel further and more, but only to a point.

But who was contending otherwise? You don't need it to be infinite, to be a problem all it has to do is not allow the reduction in driving because now distances are shorter and sometimes people can walk to not exceed the increase in density because now four times as many people are in the same area. Which it might not have done even without this, depending on how much more often shorter distances cause people to walk.

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

#498
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't understand market pricing are against rent taxes because they think landlords can pass them through.

> People who don't understand market pricing are against rent taxes because they think landlords can pass them through. If all rents are taxed, what is the market mechanism to avoid pass though? It seems as if a more fair approach would be to increase tax rates on income from rents. That way a rentier would not defer maintenance, the costs of which would be deducted from income and not taxed, as opposed to front-load…

The problem — again, in America — is that residential rents are by far the largest component of unreported income. Exemptions mean nothing to petty criminals who are already not effectively taxed.

The market mechanism that precludes tax pass-through is the price is already set as high as the market will bear. If landlords could raise the rent to pass through a new tax then they would have done so already without the tax.

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

#499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't assume that the number of cars is a constant though. As point A and point B become farther apart, car usage goes up. When they become closer together, car usage scales down.

But as point A and point B become closer together, it takes less time to get there by car and then people do it more often. Unless traffic congestion eats the time savings, implying that there is high traffic congestion.

Cities are populated by people, not cars. As point A and point B become closer, people are less likely to drive.

If your mailbox is attached to your house, you can lean out your front door to get your mail. If your mailbox is at the end of your 20 foot driveway, you take a few steps to get your mail. If you live on a farm, and your mailbox is down a several hundred yard driveway, you might hop in your side-by-side UTV. If your mail goes to a Post Office Box in town, you might hop in your truck and pick it up while running errands.

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

#500

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.

How do people deal with being sweaty at work? Do offices generally have showers?

they don't; it's just not practical. You have to be relatively fit and energetic to do it every day, have no chores like kids pickup, have extra time on your hands, the weather has to be perfect - no rain or god forbid snow. This only works for a particular segment of working people out there.
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