Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet
@FMIII You're not aware of what's possible. You say you love NYC, do you even know the density over there is greater than that of Paris? And if those so exclusive, so very Central Parisians act as NIMBYs up into our suburbs, I swear they'll face violence.
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Firstly, I do love NYC but that doesn't imply that I don't appreciate my conurbation.
Secondly, I am all in favor of skyscrapers in the conurbation. And that is why I am so dissapointed by La Defense's lack of audacity in particular and the lack of highrise apartment towers in general. So please, avoid talking about "violence", we are more civilized than that (I hope
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
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Thirdly, I will use the word "Paris" to talk about the conurbation shown on the map.
That being said, let's go back to the matter of density of population.Yes, as the map shows it, the population density of NYC and Paris is about the same (while we almost have no highrises...) But that is not exactly true, because the square meter number of the NYC area written on the map doesn't take into accounts the blue part of it. The real area of NYC is 1214,4 km2 not 634,1 km2. Indeed, NYC has a lower density of population than Paris. Because even though you can not build on water, rivers (as green spaces but to a lesser extent) can be used as entertainment places and have a positive impact on pollution (Paris has a higher rate of pollution than NYC)
There is also the problem of traffic: New York is a "modern city" and it has a much better street grids to ease traffic than Paris. Besides, Manhattan lacks parking spaces (they can not dig as low as Paris because of NYC's granite ground) hence people have taken the habit to rely much more on subway and taxis to commute. And they can do it because it works 24 hours a day (no strike allowed) and it covers the entire city while in the case of Paris, its almost only the "inner city" which has such a system. The RER isn't enough to compensate.
As you can see, while Paris has no highrises, it is, at least, already as overcrowed as NY and it has a much less efficient transport system. That is why I compared Paris to Madrid and London. They are much more similar in term of building zone, street networks and mass transit system, than NYC. And in Europe, Paris is already the most over-populated area by 2 to 1.
Hence Paris won't be able to withstand a population growth if it doesn't:
- Increase its subway coverage and hours of operation
- Discourage people to use their cars
- Create green spaces to reduce or at least contain pollution level
- Create another business district in the east part of the conurbation
We are living there my friends so I do hope that our politicians are up to the job and that they will implement the necessary changes. Otherwise, even though I love skyscrapers, I don't want to live in an unliveable place.