Priced out of Paris • Hacker News Board

Re: Priced out of Paris

#111

Post by VLM » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:49 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #26

datr wrote: post #5

I don't want to undermine this piece too much as I think it is an important issue and what I'm about to say doesn't address all of the details. But I also believe it's an issue that will be partially solved by automated cars. As soon as it becomes palatable to live further from the city and commute; and, to a lesser extent, free up space from car parks, this problem will be dramatically reduced.

I think much more than automated cars, what will help is the Internet and new technologies making it ever easier to work from home, instead of having to "go to your job" in the city.

You need to maintain the fiction of requiring face to face contact, otherwise someone in (insert 3rd world) will simply do the job even cheaper.

Higher residential density would be survivable IF "work at home every other day" was somehow legally enforced. That would maintain the face2face fiction while also increasing density without collapse due to congestion.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#112

Post by mason55 » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #107

mason55 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, if that is true, then how do they afford London? It's just like the jobs. The immigrants are willing to deal with conditions that the natives aren't, for many reasons. For example, I live in NYC Chinatown. There are buildings set up where they section off an entire floor into 8 foot by 8 foot rooms with a shared kitchen & bathroom. Most Americans would never live there but the immigrant Chinese are happy to b…

I used to live in Manhattan Chinatown. Are those places still around? I ask because even Chinatown is becoming increasingly expensive. I think in most of those "studios" the landlord has cashed out and sold the property for redevelopment. No way that even 20 poor immigrants can pay the rent of a single Wall street trader. Also the city was cracking down on those slumlords because most of them were rife with code viol…

There are still a few that I'm aware of but you're right that luxury buildings are going up. 138 E Broadway and 55 Hester being two of the newest examples.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#113

Post by Tichy » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #95

JPKab wrote: post #56

My cousin is a .01%-er. My father's brother, due to a position of political power he held in the late 1970's, met and married a woman who is an heir to an American old-money family. (if i were to name them, you would know. If you listen to NPR for more than an hour, you will hear their name mentioned as a donor) The contrast is insane, since my entire family is Appalachian coal mining stock. She NEVER visits, so the…

Bitcoin proponents: this is the world deflationary currencies lead to. All the wealth owned by a few, passed on from generation to generation. And you can even cut the investment bankers out of the loop, thanks to the risk free return on just keeping money under your mattress and the constantly falling prices.

That theory seems awfully simplistic. Or on the other hand, perhaps the whole world is deflationary, because it is a limited resource. So the the bleak future you depict is inevitable.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#114

Post by arjunnarayan » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

bvi wrote: post #108

rdouble wrote: post #46

Earlier 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…

Which clever video was this? Link please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc

Re: Priced out of Paris

#115

Post by rdouble » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #107

mason55 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, if that is true, then how do they afford London? It's just like the jobs. The immigrants are willing to deal with conditions that the natives aren't, for many reasons. For example, I live in NYC Chinatown. There are buildings set up where they section off an entire floor into 8 foot by 8 foot rooms with a shared kitchen & bathroom. Most Americans would never live there but the immigrant Chinese are happy to b…

I used to live in Manhattan Chinatown. Are those places still around? I ask because even Chinatown is becoming increasingly expensive. I think in most of those "studios" the landlord has cashed out and sold the property for redevelopment. No way that even 20 poor immigrants can pay the rent of a single Wall street trader. Also the city was cracking down on those slumlords because most of them were rife with code viol…

Most of those places are gone except for the ones that are actually in the back of a shop or a restaurant. Due to the peculiarities of Chinatown real estate, there are now quite a few buildings redone into condos, sold only to other Chinese people (from China? Flushing? not sure) which are purchased but largely remain empty.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#116

Post by carlob » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

epsylon wrote: post #92

carlob wrote: post #31

An interesting phenomenon in Paris is the fact that there are still many housing projects inside Paris proper. Which means that effectively only the middle class is getting priced out. Only the really rich or really poor get to stay. In the meantime democratic representation is failing: Paris is a metropolis of 12 million inhabitants and only about 2.2 millions vote for the mayor. The government needs to expand the m…

I live just nearby Paris (in Issy-les-moulineaux) and I do vote for a mayor, just not the mayor of Paris. I also vote for a few local representatives (département, canton and région). Representation isn't a problem, since many projects are handled by the départements or région. > An interesting phenomenon in Paris is the fact that there are still many housing projects inside Paris proper. Which means that effectively…

> I live just nearby Paris (in Issy-les-moulineaux) and I do vote for a mayor, just not the mayor of Paris. I also vote for a few local representatives (département, canton and région). Representation isn't a problem, since many projects are handled by the départements or région.

I lived in Montrouge and in Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, so I know what I'm talking about.

Look at all the trouble they ran into when they tried to extend bike sharing outside the Paris municipality. If such an artificial barrier were eliminated and the first couple of rings of neighboring towns were to be absorbed in Paris proper such a thing would never had happened.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#117

Post by michaelochurch » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #101

glenra wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right, let's raze all historical cities, and build stell and glass cubes. If redevelopment were generally allowed in cities like Paris and New York some of ugliest, least unique buildings would tend to get replaced with something newer and possibly better. And fifty or a hundred years later some of those new buildings would themselves also be prized by preservationists. People HATED the Eiffel Tower when it was fir…

The city planners did allow some unchecked redevelopment in the early 70s and 80s. Most of those buildings are still considered ugly and time hasn't made them any prettier, trust me. I wouldn't say it's the traditionalist but the the people have, collectively, have decided that they want a specific aesthetic and most of the buildings being proposed aren't it. The Forums Les Halles was erected in the 70s, the architec…

Most of those buildings are still considered ugly and time hasn't made them any prettier, trust me.

Aesthetics are for the comfortable. I don't think most New Yorkers know (or care) what the exteriors of their buildings look like. I'd rather have ugly buildings and lower rent so I can save. Yes, I'm a dick because I care about my future more than whether bored rich people like the looks of the city. I live here, I work here, I don't fucking "look at" it because I don't have time and I don't really care. For aesthetics, I go to Central Park. I'd be pissed if that went away. But I don't give the square root of a fuck if someone wants to build a hideous 100-story apartment building (bringing down rents, one hopes) in the Village, as long as they do it safely.

If you want aesthetics, go out to the mountains. It's beautiful and no one is going to build a 100-story eyesore any time soon.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#118

Post by reedlaw » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #95

JPKab wrote: post #56

My cousin is a .01%-er. My father's brother, due to a position of political power he held in the late 1970's, met and married a woman who is an heir to an American old-money family. (if i were to name them, you would know. If you listen to NPR for more than an hour, you will hear their name mentioned as a donor) The contrast is insane, since my entire family is Appalachian coal mining stock. She NEVER visits, so the…

Bitcoin proponents: this is the world deflationary currencies lead to. All the wealth owned by a few, passed on from generation to generation. And you can even cut the investment bankers out of the loop, thanks to the risk free return on just keeping money under your mattress and the constantly falling prices.

This is the world deflationary currencies lead to--referring to the real world where inflationary currencies reign? Seeing how inflation doesn't prevent mis-allocation of resources, I don't see how this example is a good argument against deflationary currencies.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#119

Post by michaelochurch » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 2:58 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #113

rayiner wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin proponents: this is the world deflationary currencies lead to. All the wealth owned by a few, passed on from generation to generation. And you can even cut the investment bankers out of the loop, thanks to the risk free return on just keeping money under your mattress and the constantly falling prices.

That theory seems awfully simplistic. Or on the other hand, perhaps the whole world is deflationary, because it is a limited resource. So the the bleak future you depict is inevitable.

Or on the other hand, perhaps the whole world is deflationary, because it is a limited resource.

That's flatly untrue, however. The world is not a limited resource. That's even true of real estate. Back when Silicon Valley was becoming great it was a backwater where the Establishment assholes didn't want to live (hence cheap land). The value of things is a product of their relationships to other things, and the pool of total value increases as the configuration of things improves.

Re: Priced out of Paris

#120

Post by epsylon » Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 3:01 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #104

Someone needs to publish a list of all these 11.5-month-vacant apartments that rich people buy and that take up so much space, so that burglars can get in when they're not there. There should be an app for that. I'm sure there are home security measures up the wazoo, but those are technical problems. I could never hack the criminal lifestyle-- I have enough anxiety as it is-- but there are cases in which non-violent…

There has been actually a few actions by some local associations to squat vacant buildings in Paris. One of the most famous of these squat was Rue de la Banque, nearby the prestigious Place de la Bourse, which owes its name to the Palais Brongniart, the old Paris Stock Exchange.

The building had been bought by a bank and left vacant for years. By squatting it these three associations did a great thing and launched a national debate on housing conditions in Paris. The building was bought by the city of Paris a bit later (at a cheap price), and was converted into social housing that coincidentally opened just a few days back (on the 6th of june). [1]

There was another famous squat, though much shorter-lived. An insurance had left a building vacated avenue Matignon (nearby the Palais de l'Élysée, where the French president resides) for 3 years. The association organized a squat, and they were expulsed 3 days later. I don't know what has become of this building as of today, though it seems there hasn't been any followup.

[1] http://www.leparisien.fr/espace-premium/paris-75/rue-de-la-b...