I'm an American ruby/python developer living in Paris. The cost of living in Paris is comparable to living in New York City or San Francisco. In some ways it can be cheaper. You can find affordable places to live and work all over Paris, and you can find all kinds of ways to spend or save money in any city.
Priced out of Paris
61–70 of 186 posts
Re: Priced out of Paris
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 1% buy multiple properties in many different cities. There have been articles about how the City of London has neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments owned by various sheikhs and russian/central asian commodities oligarchs. In SF when you buy a house you are also competing with dozens of investors from overseas paying cash who don't have any intention of ever living there. I believe that the Vancouv…
Note that the City of London is in some ways a tax haven and a neighborhood in London itself.
Interesting tangent! Any refs on the tax situation?
Re: Priced out of Paris
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 1% buy multiple properties in many different cities. There have been articles about how the City of London has neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments owned by various sheikhs and russian/central asian commodities oligarchs. In SF when you buy a house you are also competing with dozens of investors from overseas paying cash who don't have any intention of ever living there. I believe that the Vancouv…
Nitpick: the City of London does not have neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments, because the City of London is the one square mile of the city where the financial industry lives. It's equivalent to the Financial District in New York. The only significant chunk of residential building is the Barbican, which is not empty, just awful. The name of the city as a whole is simply London. You could even call i…
Barbican is great. It's beautifully designed - a real icon.
Re: Priced out of Paris
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually know the difference between City of London and London because I watched that one clever Youtube video explaining it. However, I don't really have the details internalized as I've not been to London. To explain what I meant, I was thinking of this article that I read about One Hyde Park: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residen... I had merged this info in my head with another link that…
I wonder if there is a need here for a Luxury AirBnB so that folks who aren't millionaires could spend time in these places that are otherwise going empty. Seems like space could be offered for less than normal rent since anything above $0 would be a gain as long as there was a decent screening process.
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Re: Priced out of Paris
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually know the difference between City of London and London because I watched that one clever Youtube video explaining it. However, I don't really have the details internalized as I've not been to London. To explain what I meant, I was thinking of this article that I read about One Hyde Park: http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2013/04/mysterious-residen... I had merged this info in my head with another link that…
I wonder if there is a need here for a Luxury AirBnB so that folks who aren't millionaires could spend time in these places that are otherwise going empty. Seems like space could be offered for less than normal rent since anything above $0 would be a gain as long as there was a decent screening process.
There is!
A friend of mine used it for some visiting extended family, that he wanted to keep at a slightly extended distance. Spoke highly of it.
However, I'm not sure I've got 3 friends or couples who would be willing to split a house and still pay £150 per person a night.
Re: Priced out of Paris
#66Why is Paris really expensive? Constricted supply and high demand. Why is the supply constricted? Because Paris refuse to build anything in the center. That's because the center is a historical preservation district writ large. If you build anything modern, it would "ruin" the image of Paris. So, Paris would need to change its policy and start demolishing old buildings, and build higher density buildings. Certainly,…
I live in Paris and I don't think that's the solution.
All forms of transportation in Paris are saturated. Adding more housing capability would make moving inside (and around) Paris even more terrible than it is today. The boulevard périphérique circling the city is one of the busiest highways in Europe [1]. The RER A train line is also one of the busiest in the world[2]. Trust me, we don't want more people in Paris.
What we need to do is decentralize, spread the population, services and work farther around the city.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard_P%C3%A9riph%C3%A9riqu...
Re: Priced out of Paris
#67Why is Paris really expensive? Constricted supply and high demand. Why is the supply constricted? Because Paris refuse to build anything in the center. That's because the center is a historical preservation district writ large. If you build anything modern, it would "ruin" the image of Paris. So, Paris would need to change its policy and start demolishing old buildings, and build higher density buildings. Certainly,…
OMG a Le Corbusier nephew. Right, let's raze all historical cities, and build stell and glass cubes. And while we're at it, let's burn a few books and paintings too...
Or a Modern Hausmanian :)
Re: Priced out of Paris
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Couldn't agree more, I live in Newcastle (Upon Tyne) and wonder why all my friends headed down south after uni - for "the salary" was their reasoning but none of them have savings and their salary goes into rent, commuting and maintain an expensive social life. I'd much rather be here in Newcastle and be able to afford to live and save - just wish the weather were a little better
It's great that you two feel that way. As someone who grew up in cities in the south and now lives in London, i'd rather saw my own leg off than live in rural Yorkshire. There just isn't anything there that appeals to me. Newcastle would be less scary - i'd only give up a foot to avoid living there. This is not in any way a slight against either Yorkshire or Newcastle. Just an observation that one man's meat is anoth…
Rxactly. I felt the same when, as a teenager, my parents moved from Surrey to rural Lincolnshire and I had to go along for the ride.
15 years on, I now love living in such a rural area (and also married with kids!) but it's pointless if you want to easily see the latest bands, have a large and sophisticated social circle, easily meet people you do non-rural business with, enjoy the latest in fashion or food, easily travel to other places without driving, etc..
On the flip side, I can easily go off roading, take my daughters to see farm animals every week, zero traffic jams, low crime, low cost of living, etc, so it's all swings and roundabouts! (And we even have fibre Internet, oddly, so it even ticks my geek box ;-))
Re: Priced out of Paris
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nitpick: the City of London does not have neighborhoods of empty luxury apartment developments, because the City of London is the one square mile of the city where the financial industry lives. It's equivalent to the Financial District in New York. The only significant chunk of residential building is the Barbican, which is not empty, just awful. The name of the city as a whole is simply London. You could even call i…
Barbican is great. It's beautifully designed - a real icon.
Couldn't agree more - here are some photos for anyone who doesn't know what we are talking about http://stu.radnidge.com/post/42107133867
Re: Priced out of Paris
#70The article talks a lot about cities now being the domain only of "one-percenters" and "global elite". This is demonstrably false. Consider the UK. UK's population: 62 million London population: 8 million 13% of the UK's population, therefore, resides in London. To say that only the "1%" can afford London is clearly not the case. In France's case, 15% of the population live in Paris. Perhaps we can't all live in Lond…
To be clear, before I start: I'm not in the anti-immigrant, finger pointing, blame every one else camp what so ever. Call me a mental hippy, but I believe people should be able to go, in a country sense, where they like on this planet.
What I don't understand here is that there have been reports and articles about how the white working classes are being forced out of London (That would be Greater London, not central London, which one would expect to be loony priced) by immigrants, who are supposed to be either dole scroungers or taking "our British jobs" from our "British people" by working for dirty cheap, while changing London in to Londonistan. Well, if that is true, then how do they afford London?
OK, I can already pick all that apart myself, I didn't work to hard at fleshing out such insanity, but clearly there is some contradiction there, right? There are a hell of a lot of poor people, born and immigrant, who manage to live in London.