> The obvious point of comparison are most southern (and some northern) european countries that have lots of outdoor (often on-street) dining, apparently without much deleterious effect.
I love outdoor dining, but from my experiences walking in both SF and Paris, the sidewalks are typically much wider in Paris. They even have space for enormous newspaper kiosks [1]. Meanwhile, in the US, the structures typically encroach on an already crowded sidewalk [2].
Others have mentioned a car-centric culture, but there are plenty of cars in Paris too, it just seems bigger. I wonder if I can back this supposition up with actual street measurements.
Also, Paris for whatever reason seems to have way fewer visible problems with homelessness than SF. It's possible they are just keeping it away from the public eye though.
I do think the space issue is a good distinction. And not ceding huge parts of the city to street parking is another one.
But there are crowded 'us city sized' sidewalks in plenty of places in Paris where the space to walk between tables probably wouldn't make accessible code in the US; too narrow and uneven and busy.
Here is a hip area comes to mind in paris [1]. it has those built out wooden platforms onto what used to be parking spaces like in the eater article. narrow sidewalks. Odd there are no people in the satellite I wonder if the most recent one was early pandemic. It was packed last I went.
One big difference is car size & number of cars per person. It's a lot lower than most US cities save a couple. [2]
They are decades ahead in trying to reclaim cities from cars & invest in alternative infrastructure. That area for example is now a 'pedestrian street' and they are doing great things taking back the seine. there were major differences & amazing improvements from when I went pre and during covid.
In contrast my city Denver also closed a couple streets that ran through parks during coviv (shouldn't have been built in the first place).
They added some roundabouts and other things to encourage a more bike/ped friendly space on just a couple roads.
Only to take them right back out... So infuriating. Paris used COVID to speed up and we seem to be going backwards. [3]
> Also, Paris for whatever reason seems to have way fewer visible problems with homelessness than SF. It's possible they are just keeping it away from the public eye though.
While France isn't above trying to hide poverty, it's still not as prevalent an attitude as it is in Britain and the US.
I think the answer's pretty simple : the welfare and healthcare system is just better. It's harder to be homeless and addicted in France than the US. SF in particular seems to have a drug problem.
> Others have mentioned a car-centric culture, but there are plenty of cars in Paris too, it just seems bigger. I wonder if I can back this supposition up with actual street measurements.
I suspect you won't be able to back this up with actual street measurements and that they just make better use of the available space. We give a lot of space over to cars in the US.
I love outdoor dining, but from my experiences walking in both SF and Paris, the sidewalks are typically much wider in Paris. They even have space for enormous newspaper kiosks [1]. Meanwhile, in the US, the structures typically encroach on an already crowded sidewalk [2].
Others have mentioned a car-centric culture, but there are plenty of cars in Paris too, it just seems bigger. I wonder if I can back this supposition up with actual street measurements.
Also, Paris for whatever reason seems to have way fewer visible problems with homelessness than SF. It's possible they are just keeping it away from the public eye though.
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[1] https://frenchmoments.eu/newspaper-kiosks-of-paris/
[2] https://ny.eater.com/2021/5/25/22452773/new-yorkers-debate-o...