Paris Wants to Keep Central Neighborhoods From Becoming 'Ghettos for the Rich'

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Crawford

This isn't necessarily true, though. There are many fairly successful public housing programs and many failed ones. I don't think one can make a blanket statement that public housing is a failed idea, even if (in the case of Chicago) it certainly was not a success.

You're proving my point for me, I think. The successful public housing programs (Paris, NYCHA, numerous foreign examples, etc) have a range of incomes and family types. Sometimes this means that government steps on the toes of middle-income private landlords or some unemployable single moms with three children stay on the wait list.

Poor people also don't have the political clout to protect their gains, so any program that only serves poor people is easy for conservatives to kill.

[M II A II R II K]

Vienna came out with a great idea for public housing where if you get too rich, they let you stay there to prevent ghettoization, and plus those buildings are of condo quality so there's no rush to escape those facilities anyway.

http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/gov-affordable-luxurious-housing-in-vienna.html

[Minato Ku]

Anyway today there is no aesthetic difference between normal and social housing in Paris.
In recent complex or districts, buildings are mixed, everything is done to prevent ghettoization.

The issue in the City of Paris is not that much about poor people but middle class famillies. (If you are single or in couple, you can still live in tiny appartments or share appartments).
The City of Paris is increasingly becoming a place with only high and low income. Middle class famillies are in suburbs, especially in outer suburbs.

[TimesNewRoman]

Hi there everyone,

I'm an urban planning student interested in right of first refusal policies like this... it was great to stumble upon this thread, and interesting to hear all the responses.

I'm curious if anybody is familiar with any other policies like this anywhere? Most of what I'm familiar with are tenant right of first refusal policies; I'm really curious if there are any precedents for this law (where the city or some entity other than the tenant has the right of first refusal/right to purchase).

Also, sorry to bump this thread after half a year; I wonder if anybody knows about any updates on this situation? Have any purchases been made?

Thanks! (first post!)

[The North One]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

That has already been done in many streets and avenues of the most central areas of Paris, such as Boulevard Haussmann.

Or here, 3 floors:

All of these examples look horrible.

They need to expand the city limits.

[Ant131531]

Expanding the city limits really does nothing either considering there are loads of dense apartment blocks right outside the actual city proper. In fact, in some areas, you wouldn't even know you left the Paris city proper.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by The North One

All of these examples look horrible.

They need to expand the city limits.

Paris already extends well beyond the edges of ... Paris. In every direction.

The problem is that (ugly or no) the only way to increase the core city's density is to build up -- short of major investments extending the Metro deeper into the suburbs.

[The North One]

Why don't they create other designated areas with good access to public transportation that allows for high-rises and modern buildings? Like La Defense except for residential development?

The historic core can't be the only place that's desired.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by The North One

All of these examples look horrible.

No, they don't. You only picked the most boring of those shown here.
That kind of things can work very well.

Originally Posted by TimesNewRoman

Also, sorry to bump this thread after half a year; I wonder if anybody knows about any updates on this situation? Have any purchases been made?

Your request reminded me of this. I guess the socialist municipality was involved in that sort of extreme instance that amused me. They converted that former office complex into social housing, that is their regulated affordable housing policy.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=6579708&postcount=753

That's obviously the kind of social housing people will never leave, even when their incomes would increase to the point that they no longer have a right to it.

As far as I go, I'd rather laugh at it. I find it even cool when I think about the feeling it must be to the poor who now live there instead of a poorly developed suburb. But at the same time, I can easily understand that many find it shocking. I'm shocked, myself, cause that is indeed a weirdest, basically unfair and cynical policy, as partly explained by this post that some in Paris should read.

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Ugh. I hate this/find this very troubling as well. At the risk of sounding like a right-wing caricature, I will add that I think it's also very un-American. The micro-apartment trend (well, "trend") is perfectly illustrative. A lot of folks on the left decry it because they claim compact spaces are inhumane, a pretty fucking classist value judgment: It's perfectly fine when you willfully subject yourself to dorm room living for four years on your parents' dime in the name of higher education, but it's unacceptable for the relatively poorer to prioritize, say, a centralized location over extra living space to save time/money on their commute? (You're allowed that kind of agency; they're not?) But their preferred outcome--large units for everyone!--is an obvious nonstarter. So the cobbled together compromise solution we're left with still privileges one group--the poorest--over others--the poor--restricting the latter's access even more and, in fact, perversely disincentivizing financial success for those just above the cut-off. Talk about a moral inversion. Yet this system, in which a token but arbitrary handful of the more destitute are spared at the expense of, among others, the slightly less destitute, is somehow preferable to one that only a hardened Marxist could argue doesn't still have the capacity to reward those who merit it?

That's it. That's why the French left wing will end up in trouble, when people are tired of that kind of inequity. Social mixity and integration is a fine concept to avoid violence in society, but it surely shouldn't be a threat to meritocracy that's the main founding value of the French Republic; otherwise, it's only unfair.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by mousquet

No, they don't. You only picked the most boring of those shown here.
That kind of things can work very well.

No, they all looked horrible, none of them seamlessly transitioned into the rest of the building, they were all blatantly obvious additions with entirely different facades. I didn't feel it was necessary to repost every single photo.

The idea of adding additional floors is totally unrealistic anyway.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by The North One

No, they all looked horrible, none of them seamlessly transitioned into the rest of the building, they were all blatantly obvious additions with entirely different facades. I didn't feel it was necessary to repost every single photo.

Saith you.

The idea of adding additional floors is totally unrealistic anyway.

Actually, that is a major part of how those traditional European cityscapes have come to be. Height, whether by incremental addition or by small-scale replacement, is added gradually as a response to demand.

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2015/05/traditional-euro-bloc-what-it-is-how-it.html

Also the fact that it is done shows that it can be done, regardless of what you or anybody else may think.

[The North One]

You're forgetting the 7 floor height limit.

If you think those were seamless, attractive transitions, go ahead and try to convince the authority/citizens over there that it should be done (good luck considering the fact that they already want the roofs to be an untouched world heritage site). a few additional floors even to every building in the city won't fix the problem, only put a small band-aid on it.

The only way I see something being done about this is creating more areas outside of the landmarked core that will allow higher buildings.

[hammersklavier]

Originally Posted by The North One

You're forgetting the 7 floor height limit.

If you think those were seamless, attractive transitions, go ahead and try to convince the authority/citizens over there that it should be done (good luck considering the fact that they already want the roofs to be an untouched world heritage site). a few additional floors even to every building in the city won't fix the problem, only put a small band-aid on it.

The only way I see something being done about this is creating more areas outside of the landmarked core that will allow higher buildings.

If we assume that these buildings have two apartments a floor (traditional European walkup) then at five floors there are ten apartments.

At eight, sixteen.

That's a 62.5% increase in the unit density when these vertical additions/in situ replacements are utilized at scale. To put that in perspective, theoretically those small additions can cram up to an additional 1.4 million Parisians into the city!

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by The North One

You're forgetting the 7 floor height limit.

If you think those were seamless, attractive transitions, go ahead and try to convince the authority/citizens over there that it should be done (good luck considering the fact that they already want the roofs to be an untouched world heritage site). a few additional floors even to every building in the city won't fix the problem, only put a small band-aid on it.

The only way I see something being done about this is creating more areas outside of the landmarked core that will allow higher buildings.

That was only a proposal from the nimbys of the right wing conservative and the far left green parties, but they're a minority at the municipal council, thus failed to pass such a nimby bill.

The current socialist mayor as her predecessor is a moderate, more of a 'liberal' than a 'socialist', so to speak and she's in favor of highrises in the new districts developed on the edge of the city. She has to deal with a municipal majority that's been partly skeptical on the issue, but keeps on implementing the plans of her former boss anyway.

For example, see what the new fabric of the Rive Gauche master plan is morphing into.


Hopefully Vincent doesn't mind if I pick this shot of his as the most eloquent I could quickly find on SSC.

You see that the latest infill gradually counts more floors, simply because there's no choice. These things sit on a southeast limit of the central city and are likely to prompt the neighboring suburbs to do the same, if not taller. So what you're suggesting is happening already. Obviously, most of today's development occurs in the large inner ring suburbs.

Moreover, I would remind you of this I mentioned in March in the Paris general development thread, when that silly roof story was also reported.

The urban planning office of Central Paris counted some 11,500 buildings (out of 140k in all on the Central Paris territory) of which the heights could be increased in a recent census, still by complying with the overly strict height limits and urban planning rules enforced within the central city. That would allow to append 1 to 5 floors to those buildings, and build some 40,000 new homes whose areas would range from 500 to 750 square feet.

That's what the mayor's planning, and I assume it would slightly affect the central districts themselves. That plan is shy enough, huh, really nothing rebellious. So if the mayor's temper can get aggressive enough, it should be implemented without even really be noticed. We're just talking about some little and basically insignificant adjustments here, nothing like an upheaval. So don't worry about the Central Paris roofs. Almost all will remain unaltered anyway.

Finally, we desperately need a noticeable signal that would help locals better appreciate highrises in general, and high-rise living in particular. I think the project of the Hermitage twins at la Défense is both tall and neutral enough to achieve this. Although some dislike the top heavy side of the towers - that's yet their smartest feature when you think about it - their design is pretty consensual, sleek and soft enough, and even quite generic by contemporary codes. That's the kind of developments needed to finally set up highrises in the local cityscape for good. When those twins are built in the coming years, I expect more and more residential towers to rise again, but this time mostly in the inner suburbs. Then we can really improve the local housing market.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Vienna came out with a great idea for public housing where if you get too rich, they let you stay there to prevent ghettoization, and plus those buildings are of condo quality so there's no rush to escape those facilities anyway.

http://www.governing.com/topics/economic-dev/gov-affordable-luxurious-housing-in-vienna.html

Umm... isn't that normal now? All new social housing is mixed incomes now. I think the idea of segregating low income people from higher income people is not very popular anymore.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by The North One

Why don't they create other designated areas with good access to public transportation that allows for high-rises and modern buildings? Like La Defense except for residential development?

The historic core can't be the only place that's desired.

In France people prefer their own house with garden.

Three days ago I went on a 5-hour urban trek in the outer suburbs of Paris with Minato Ku. This is a picture I took in Villiers-sur-Orge. It shows the urban edge of the megacity. This is the sort of high-quality individual housing that is favored by people, and I can't blame them, because the quality of life over there is great, and those houses are much larger and more modern than housing in the heart of the megacity or in the inner suburbs.



Just across road, this is the view (undulating wheat fields, so peaceful and beautiful, yet surrounded by millions of people; this is not some distant and dead countryside!).



From further up, this is how it looks. When I took this picture, I was standing exactly 22.5 km (14 miles) south of Notre Dame Cathedral in the center of Paris as the crow flies, and looking east. About 300,000 people live in this picture. The wheat fields are beyond the forest in the middle of the picture, but you can't see them because distances are compressed.



Those outer suburbs look so pretty and manicured, there is a real sense of community, and they are somehow reminiscent of rural life, with the advantage of living on the edge of a megacity, so it's no wonder they are popular (French people have never really liked cities; they remain 'country' people at heart).

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

In France people prefer their own house with garden.

Overdone statement. Some better off have both their apartments in Central Paris and large houses at the fringe of the region. Of course that's the best possible situation.

Born in the Yvelines département (Saint-Germain-en-Laye), that's exactly the kind of environment I was raised in before I had to move to a tiny studio in Central Paris after high school. It's a different lifestyle and my easy childhood memories, but I must say, I've always been fascinated by higher density, and many if not most (if not nearly all) locals feel the very same. Even as a small kid, when my dad would take me to the dense central city on weekends, I would feel completely delighted from the feeling of getting lost amidst those endless street walls. And you know, when you're a kid, everything feels 100 times bigger than it actually is.

I think all kinds of housing are needed over the metro area, but excessive sprawl is a nonsense precisely because it threatens the semi-rural landscapes on the edge of the urban area. You should drive through the Vexin for example. It is charming enough with its little villages to be protected from urbanization, at least for now.

[New Brisavoine]

I see no problem with sprawl. France is a BIG country, in fact it's the biggest country in the EU. There is LOTS of space everywhere, hundreds of miles of rural desert, so you know, there is room to expand the cities, lots of room. It's not like England, or Benelux, or West Germany, or Italy where they have no room and need to preserve their countryside. France resembles more the US Midwest.

[mousquet]

No, we're not that large. So what do you want? Classy high-rise districts properly laid out, or hellish boring sprawl? We can't have both. Besides, I like thinking of our country as a big farming power. People need to fill in their stomachs before anything else.

A house and a yard don't necessarily mean comfort, far from there. In Val-de-Marne that I'm living for now, there are some single-family detached housing suburbs that are not so desirable at all right now. See something like Chevilly-Larue for instance, at random. The youth in that kind of suburbs has been in pain, though. Lots of drugs and wrong stuff. Believe me, those guys would kill to live the dense city and make a better living.

[Minato Ku]

What I would do is rather unpopular.
-I would decrease the residential density in Central Paris (Arrondissements: 1st to 10th, western egde of the 12th, northern edge of the 14th and 15th, northern edge of the 16th, southwestern edge of the 17th) and replacing them with more office and other activities (shops). Fewer risk to become a ghetto for rich, if residential activities are at their minimal.
-I would increase the density in the outer arrondissements and closest suburbs by building taller buildings.
-I would increase the density around transit hubs in further away suburbs.
-I would extend the urban sprawl of Paris above the unbuilt areas surrounded by urbanized area (ie: Saclay, Gonesse, Montesson, Pierrelaye...)

Originally Posted by The North One

No, they all looked horrible, none of them seamlessly transitioned into the rest of the building, they were all blatantly obvious additions with entirely different facades. I didn't feel it was necessary to repost every single photo.

You hardly notice them when you walk in the street.