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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. I

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 alone is critical to keep a city alive.

yieldcrv 2y ago
> but it decreases social segregation. That alone is critical to keep a city alive. I agree that is a net boon to society. I think the cross drift of ideas is a net positive, the human interaction can create more opportunities for those that have less, I don't think it reduces inequality meaningfully and I'm not suggesting that was a goal only that my prior statements might lead one to believe it does, but I've seen far more segregated cities be without many services during an infrastructure failure, because the people doing those services didn't live there.
- Probiotic6081 2y ago
  [dead]
spaniard89277 2y ago
Paris needs a new center. Like many other cities, build more places where people want to flock so you get pressure off the center. Most new developments are in dead areas because nobody wants to spend time surrounded by ugly, bland and functional architecture.
- lou1306 2y ago
  The problem is, when you are competing with the center of Paris, it is pretty hard to build a compelling alternative. Say what you will about the streets being loud, chaotic and dirty, the area between the II, III, V and VI arrondissements (Latin quarter, Pantheon, Beaubourg, Jardin du Luxembourg, Tuilleries, Notre Dame, Place des Vosges) is still just swell.
  - mebazaa 2y ago
    Yeah, and also you have the problem of job location. The regional government says they want to make the Paris area more "polycentric", but there’s a limit to that if jobs are heavily concentrated in one area. We are racing to open more subway lines, and that will surely help, but at some point, raw distance will remain a bottleneck.
    - Ragnarork 2y ago
      This reminds of the project that aimed at creating a new business/commercial complex south-east of Paris in Noisy-Le-Grand. A real estate promoter had a big project, and a metro line was designed, then built, but the real estate project went into bankruptcy and never got out of the ground.[0] The metro line was completed, inaugurated, but never opened to the public, and eventually mothballed. For quite a while, it was rumored that they operated trains once a month to keep the system working and maintained, not sure up until when. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-le-Grand_Metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-le-Grand_Metro
      - Pyrodogg 2y ago
        The Tim Traveller channel on YouTube did a couple videos about this [1] and [2]. The station was open for a brief time for some public tours before being redeveloped. He also links to some archival footage from 1997 showing it in motion [3]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxESIzJhCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxESIzJhCU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGIz_zwoALU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGIz_zwoALU [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHW9cEAO78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHW9cEAO78
    - spaniard89277 2y ago
      It's not a problem in the sense that nowadays we know how to make it. It's a question of money and political build. More housing, more offices, make it pleasent, connect it, etc.
    - mywittyname 2y ago
      Seems like governments could lead the charge by building new government facilities in an alternate location, which is created with a solid plan for incorporating public transport, housing, event spaces, and retail. Its entirely possible to build a new city from the ground up. And starting with a clean slate allows planners to design with the next 10,20,30,50 years of growth in mind. It's very difficult to scale a city effectively without a long-term city plan.
SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Do you live in one of these places?
rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago
> 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.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?
  - dv_dt 2y ago
    It causes congestion if the city refuses to invest in public transportation - which is more a problem in US cities - though some European cities could be behind on keeping up with changes to different degrees
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      Oh, right, I see, yeah. Would not generally be an issue in Paris, I would've thought, at least not towards the centre.
      - vladvasiliu 2y ago
        You'd be mistaken. Public transit is extremely crowded in the centre during rush hour. For example, two regional lines (RER B and D) need to share a tunnel in the middle of the city. They've been investigating digging another one for a long time, but, AFAIK. they haven't found an economical way of doing so. The solution is to try to move people to other lines, but those are already very crowded and I'm not aware of any project to build a new line inside of the city limits.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      Congestion is a problem even in cities with excellent public transportation. Have you ever been on the Tokyo subway at 8:30 am?
asimovfan 2y ago
Building taller means people see the sky less. In my home city that is the case and you definitely dont want that. Where ive been living the last few years, no building is above 3 stories and its wonderful.
- Tiktaalik 2y ago
  Not necessarily. There's a big difference between building a tall building with a large uniform floorplate that takes up much of a block and a tall building that is thin, only taking up a tiny slice of a block, and thus allowing sunlight to pass through. For this reason gloomy Vancouver for a long time mandated point towers, for the purpose of maximizing light. Paris' status quo of uniform 6 story streetwalls could arguably let in less light than a mixed amount of much taller thinner towers on 3 story podiums.
  - cm2187 2y ago
    Most of New York has 10-15 floors buildings with wide streets. Light and fresh air isn't a problem. But you can't really widen Paris street and the uniformity of the architecture is what makes it a beautiful city. Tourists aren't flocking to Paris to take pictures of some boring glass and concrete buildings.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  For the same density, geometrically, you should see the same amount of sky it you are at the ground floor (or outside), and more if you are on the upper floors. Here is a low rise area, H represent housing units, _ is the ground H_H_H_H_H_H Now for the same density with high rise buildings H H H H___H___H__ For someone on the ground, between buildings, the field of view occupied by the sky is the same, that's because buildings are twice taller and the distance between buildings is twice longer, which cancel out. Or equivalently, the average apparent size of buildings (how much of your field of view they take) is also the same. Obviously, people higher up have a better view of the sky.
charles_f 2y ago
Building taller is the equivalent of building more lanes. The main problem with housing shortage and infrastructure congestion in Paris is that everything is centralized and concentrated on Paris, and thus everyone want to be there
amelius 2y ago
> but it decreases social segregation. That alone is critical to keep a city alive. So rich people need poor/middle-class people to keep cities alive? Maybe they should start charging for that ...
- joelfried 2y ago
  > Maybe they should start charging for that ... Let's call it "taxes".
- bombcar 2y ago
  It's effectively doing just that - tax the entire city (which taxes are usually mainly paid by the richer people) and use the taxes to subsidize poor people. So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. It should work.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    > So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. That's a good characterization of what's happening. But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?
    - kelipso 2y ago
      Everyone needs service workers. Even service workers need service workers.
      - bombcar 2y ago
        My service workers have service workers who go to the market FOR them! Wait, that's actually what we have now.
    - dctoedt 2y ago
      > But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds? Given that each of us is allotted exactly 8,760 hours in a year: Is it good public policy to force non-wealthy people to spend so many more of those hours in commuting than those who can afford to live closer to their jobs? I live in a small, separately-incorporated city, a few minutes from downtown Houston, that has become increasingly wealthy. For several decades, the affordable bungalows built in the years following 1930s have been torn down and replaced by big houses. (Yes, my wife and I did that to build our house, more than 35 years ago.) Nowadays, though, many really big single-family homes are being put up on what used to be two-, three-, and four single-house lots. I get disgruntled every time we walk by one of those giant houses, because every one of them is, in effect, forcing two or more less-wealthy families to live further away — they're hoarding the space. (My own thought is that for big, space-hoarding houses like that, property taxes should be progressive, so that such a house might be taxed at 2X, 3X, 4X, 10X the per-foot rate of houses on smaller lots.)
littlestymaar 2y ago
> build taller Paris is already among the densest places on earth. The problem comes from the excessive centralization of practically everything France has, in Paris, leading to an overpopulation of the entire Ile de France region, which drive prices in Paris itself to the roof.
cm2187 2y ago
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.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  > parisians will pay for this with high taxes for a very long time Is that a bad thing?
  - cm2187 2y ago
    I guess not for the people who think they are entitled to the rest of the population subsidising their lifestyle.
    - itishappy 2y ago
      So, everybody? It's a city. Last I checked Paris was not full of homesteads and organic farms.
othello 2y ago
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)
- alecthomas 2y ago
  Manhattan has a population density of 28,154 per sqkm according to Wikipedia?
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Yeah; they're probably thinking of New York City. If taken on its own, Manhattan is one of the densest cities in the world; the rest of NYC brings it down a lot.
presentation 2y ago
Don’t necessarily need to build taller, if transit (not bad in Paris already) is brought up to Tokyo levels (meaning an order of magnitude greater than anywhere else) then you just build densely outwards. Tokyo has far higher population but is mostly low-rise. A city like Paris has the bones for this.
- retinaros 2y ago
  impossible to brong it to tokyo level. our people are not educated like japanese people. add the strikes, the frequent infrastructure issues and we will never reach tokyo levels. also since covid transportation is worse since they figured out they could make more money cramping up less trains
  - presentation 2y ago
    lol then I guess Paris is doomed
retinaros 2y ago
it is already one of the densest cities on earth.. dont build within paris but modernize its suburbs and create more centers there. the public housing is actually adding social segregation as it is edging out middle class and now paris is segregated between ultra rich and poor people working to serve the rich ones
charnould 2y ago
I've made a 3D map of social housings in Paris/France: https://charnould.github.io/rpls-3d/ https://charnould.github.io/rpls-3d/ Territorial segregation is a thing.

yieldcrv 2y ago

> but it decreases social segregation. That alone is critical to keep a city alive. I agree that is a net boon to society. I think the cross drift of ideas is a net positive, the human interaction can create more opportunities for those that have less, I don't think it reduces inequality meaningfully and I'm not suggesting that was a goal only that my prior statements might lead one to believe it does, but I've seen far more segregated cities be without many services during an infrastructure failure, because the people doing those services didn't live there.

Probiotic6081 2y ago
[dead]

spaniard89277 2y ago

Paris needs a new center. Like many other cities, build more places where people want to flock so you get pressure off the center. Most new developments are in dead areas because nobody wants to spend time surrounded by ugly, bland and functional architecture.

lou1306 2y ago
The problem is, when you are competing with the center of Paris, it is pretty hard to build a compelling alternative. Say what you will about the streets being loud, chaotic and dirty, the area between the II, III, V and VI arrondissements (Latin quarter, Pantheon, Beaubourg, Jardin du Luxembourg, Tuilleries, Notre Dame, Place des Vosges) is still just swell.
- mebazaa 2y ago
  Yeah, and also you have the problem of job location. The regional government says they want to make the Paris area more "polycentric", but there’s a limit to that if jobs are heavily concentrated in one area. We are racing to open more subway lines, and that will surely help, but at some point, raw distance will remain a bottleneck.
  - Ragnarork 2y ago
    This reminds of the project that aimed at creating a new business/commercial complex south-east of Paris in Noisy-Le-Grand. A real estate promoter had a big project, and a metro line was designed, then built, but the real estate project went into bankruptcy and never got out of the ground.[0] The metro line was completed, inaugurated, but never opened to the public, and eventually mothballed. For quite a while, it was rumored that they operated trains once a month to keep the system working and maintained, not sure up until when. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-le-Grand_Metro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-le-Grand_Metro
    - Pyrodogg 2y ago
      The Tim Traveller channel on YouTube did a couple videos about this [1] and [2]. The station was open for a brief time for some public tours before being redeveloped. He also links to some archival footage from 1997 showing it in motion [3]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxESIzJhCU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxESIzJhCU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGIz_zwoALU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGIz_zwoALU [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHW9cEAO78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHW9cEAO78
  - spaniard89277 2y ago
    It's not a problem in the sense that nowadays we know how to make it. It's a question of money and political build. More housing, more offices, make it pleasent, connect it, etc.
  - mywittyname 2y ago
    Seems like governments could lead the charge by building new government facilities in an alternate location, which is created with a solid plan for incorporating public transport, housing, event spaces, and retail. Its entirely possible to build a new city from the ground up. And starting with a clean slate allows planners to design with the next 10,20,30,50 years of growth in mind. It's very difficult to scale a city effectively without a long-term city plan.

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago

Do you live in one of these places?

rTX5CMRXIfFG 2y ago

> 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.

rsynnott 2y ago
It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?
- dv_dt 2y ago
  It causes congestion if the city refuses to invest in public transportation - which is more a problem in US cities - though some European cities could be behind on keeping up with changes to different degrees
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Oh, right, I see, yeah. Would not generally be an issue in Paris, I would've thought, at least not towards the centre.
    - vladvasiliu 2y ago
      You'd be mistaken. Public transit is extremely crowded in the centre during rush hour. For example, two regional lines (RER B and D) need to share a tunnel in the middle of the city. They've been investigating digging another one for a long time, but, AFAIK. they haven't found an economical way of doing so. The solution is to try to move people to other lines, but those are already very crowded and I'm not aware of any project to build a new line inside of the city limits.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    Congestion is a problem even in cities with excellent public transportation. Have you ever been on the Tokyo subway at 8:30 am?

asimovfan 2y ago

Building taller means people see the sky less. In my home city that is the case and you definitely dont want that. Where ive been living the last few years, no building is above 3 stories and its wonderful.

Tiktaalik 2y ago
Not necessarily. There's a big difference between building a tall building with a large uniform floorplate that takes up much of a block and a tall building that is thin, only taking up a tiny slice of a block, and thus allowing sunlight to pass through. For this reason gloomy Vancouver for a long time mandated point towers, for the purpose of maximizing light. Paris' status quo of uniform 6 story streetwalls could arguably let in less light than a mixed amount of much taller thinner towers on 3 story podiums.
- cm2187 2y ago
  Most of New York has 10-15 floors buildings with wide streets. Light and fresh air isn't a problem. But you can't really widen Paris street and the uniformity of the architecture is what makes it a beautiful city. Tourists aren't flocking to Paris to take pictures of some boring glass and concrete buildings.
GuB-42 2y ago
For the same density, geometrically, you should see the same amount of sky it you are at the ground floor (or outside), and more if you are on the upper floors. Here is a low rise area, H represent housing units, _ is the ground H_H_H_H_H_H Now for the same density with high rise buildings H H H H___H___H__ For someone on the ground, between buildings, the field of view occupied by the sky is the same, that's because buildings are twice taller and the distance between buildings is twice longer, which cancel out. Or equivalently, the average apparent size of buildings (how much of your field of view they take) is also the same. Obviously, people higher up have a better view of the sky.

charles_f 2y ago

Building taller is the equivalent of building more lanes. The main problem with housing shortage and infrastructure congestion in Paris is that everything is centralized and concentrated on Paris, and thus everyone want to be there

amelius 2y ago

> but it decreases social segregation. That alone is critical to keep a city alive. So rich people need poor/middle-class people to keep cities alive? Maybe they should start charging for that ...

joelfried 2y ago
> Maybe they should start charging for that ... Let's call it "taxes".
bombcar 2y ago
It's effectively doing just that - tax the entire city (which taxes are usually mainly paid by the richer people) and use the taxes to subsidize poor people. So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. It should work.
- rayiner 2y ago
  > So since rich people need baristas to serve them Starbucks, tax them to enable the barista to live near where she works. That's a good characterization of what's happening. But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds?
  - kelipso 2y ago
    Everyone needs service workers. Even service workers need service workers.
    - bombcar 2y ago
      My service workers have service workers who go to the market FOR them! Wait, that's actually what we have now.
  - dctoedt 2y ago
    > But is subsidizing people to be service workers for wealthy Parisians a good public policy and good use of public funds? Given that each of us is allotted exactly 8,760 hours in a year: Is it good public policy to force non-wealthy people to spend so many more of those hours in commuting than those who can afford to live closer to their jobs? I live in a small, separately-incorporated city, a few minutes from downtown Houston, that has become increasingly wealthy. For several decades, the affordable bungalows built in the years following 1930s have been torn down and replaced by big houses. (Yes, my wife and I did that to build our house, more than 35 years ago.) Nowadays, though, many really big single-family homes are being put up on what used to be two-, three-, and four single-house lots. I get disgruntled every time we walk by one of those giant houses, because every one of them is, in effect, forcing two or more less-wealthy families to live further away — they're hoarding the space. (My own thought is that for big, space-hoarding houses like that, property taxes should be progressive, so that such a house might be taxed at 2X, 3X, 4X, 10X the per-foot rate of houses on smaller lots.)

littlestymaar 2y ago

> build taller Paris is already among the densest places on earth. The problem comes from the excessive centralization of practically everything France has, in Paris, leading to an overpopulation of the entire Ile de France region, which drive prices in Paris itself to the roof.

cm2187 2y ago

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.

barbazoo 2y ago
> parisians will pay for this with high taxes for a very long time Is that a bad thing?
- cm2187 2y ago
  I guess not for the people who think they are entitled to the rest of the population subsidising their lifestyle.
  - itishappy 2y ago
    So, everybody? It's a city. Last I checked Paris was not full of homesteads and organic farms.

othello 2y ago

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)

alecthomas 2y ago
Manhattan has a population density of 28,154 per sqkm according to Wikipedia?
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Yeah; they're probably thinking of New York City. If taken on its own, Manhattan is one of the densest cities in the world; the rest of NYC brings it down a lot.

presentation 2y ago

Don’t necessarily need to build taller, if transit (not bad in Paris already) is brought up to Tokyo levels (meaning an order of magnitude greater than anywhere else) then you just build densely outwards. Tokyo has far higher population but is mostly low-rise. A city like Paris has the bones for this.

retinaros 2y ago
impossible to brong it to tokyo level. our people are not educated like japanese people. add the strikes, the frequent infrastructure issues and we will never reach tokyo levels. also since covid transportation is worse since they figured out they could make more money cramping up less trains
- presentation 2y ago
  lol then I guess Paris is doomed

retinaros 2y ago

it is already one of the densest cities on earth.. dont build within paris but modernize its suburbs and create more centers there. the public housing is actually adding social segregation as it is edging out middle class and now paris is segregated between ultra rich and poor people working to serve the rich ones

charnould 2y ago

I've made a 3D map of social housings in Paris/France: https://charnould.github.io/rpls-3d/ https://charnould.github.io/rpls-3d/ Territorial segregation is a thing.