I used to think like you but no longer do. A city NEEDS to have people of all ages, backgrounds, income levels etc in it to not die. Yes those people who live in that most central subsidized housing are in some ways winning a lottery ticket, and the real policy is to build a lot more housing as close to the city as possible. But Paris are doing that! AND adding new public transit etc etc. This multifaceted approach is better than just sterile economista policy. Vienna does it very successfully as well. Almost no one owns their home there, they're all renting very cheaply very high quality beautiful homes, including inside and very close to the city.
Interesting, so to put this in market terms, the city is allowing the value that such people add to it to be offset against the cost of their rent. This would mean that cities like Paris choosing to do this is entirely rational and GP's calculation fails to reach this conclusion because it ignores the actual trade that is being made in these cases?
Or to make a clichéd example: being cool and arty isn't particularly rewarded by salaries because there are a limited number of opportunities for this to improve a company's profitability. But it can be rewarded by subsidised rents because people prefer to live in cities with a population of cool and arty people for the non-monetary benefits they bring to that society.
> But it can be rewarded by subsidised rents because people prefer to live in cities with a population of cool and arty people for the non-monetary benefits they bring to that society.
Well, some people do. But everyone is paying for it, even if they'd rather save.
If the value your espousing is, "No one should ever pay to have others live better than them off a livelihood that they don't support," a great portion of the remainder of America's middle class gets Thanos snapped. A lot of the decently-paying jobs in services, tech, etc. that these communities rely on essentially make the world a worse place, but they're profitable, and people gotta eat.
> A lot of the decently-paying jobs in services, tech, etc. that these communities rely on essentially make the world a worse place, but they're profitable, and people gotta eat.
If those jobs are paid for by voluntary customers, then that's fine. If they're subsidised through taxes of people who don't want them, that's the issue I'm mentioning.
there is no job on this planet that isn't subsidized by taxes
how do people show up to work at Google, Apple etc?
through everything from "not dying from preventably disease in adolescence" to "being educated in public schools" to "being carried to work on roads and transit paid for by the public"
That depends on the city. If it was originally a company town, probably the company. If it's a new build, probably the property developer. But either way, something that already exists is not subsidising the plumber's salary. The plumber is paid by the customer.
Anything built post-GD (which is going to be the vast majority of what you service) was likely touched by government subsidy in some fashion, whether grants, loans, or municipal bonds (tax-exempt, so effectively a subsidy). "Company towns" built before then were often subsidized, in effect, by companies not having to bear the financial burden of their many, many instances of illegal or rights-infringing behavior.
That's not considering your customers, who are likely also subsidized by the government in some fashion - if their jobs do not involve federal or state government contracts or supplying or servicing companies holding such contracts, they're almost certainly taking advantage of advantageous tax rebates or deductions.
You could equally say that tax money is all private money, so really it's all private. It's silly to talk about the provenance of money in these topics.
I guess ideally people who live in the city pay for such subsidies through various municipal taxes. People who do not value this policy and choose to live in a different city that aligns with their values would not pay for it. Everybody gets what they want.
I live in Southern Europe. A lot of the people I talk to (about half I would guesstimate) would rather live somewhere else but can't. Some would even prefer to move to a cheaper place but can't (work, elders, kids, mortgages, are some of the reason).
> People who do not value this policy and choose to live in a different city that aligns with their values would not pay for it. Everybody gets what they want
Well, not necessarily. People stay for jobs, family and friends. They will just pay for something they're not bothered about if it's not so expensive they're forced to move. That doesn't mean them staying is anything to do with the thing some people want.
I mean, OK, you could say the same about literally every public expenditure?
I'm passionately opposed to private automobiles and the fact that my tax money goes to subsidizing them (including stupid road upkeep etc)
unfortunately I don't get to choose not to pay for that (but I can choose to live in a place like Paris where the Mayor is taking active steps to support not only private automobiles but give equal importance to other modes of transport)
Yeah because you ardent motorists care so much about emergency vehicle access right?
I don't have a problem with roads, I have a problem with roads being gridlocked and destroyed by single occupancy private automobiles and the resulting unnecessary deaths and road upkeep.
You need to be able to speak without classifying people into groups. I'm not an ardent motorist. I don't think it's good to allow myself to be indoctrinated into any of the (frankly bizarre) transportation-obsessed groups that exist.
In general, I'm against govt interventions like this, but in the case of housing, I agree with you. For a society to function in a healthy way, it can't be divided in social class "gettos". It is the responsibility of the State to spend public funds to avoid that. This is not about fairness and equality. It's about the long term survival of a society.
Even further: extremely affordable technology now exists such that the leaders of our "democracies" could ask the public's opinions on such matters in a wide variety of fine-grained ways, or even better: facilitate a high quality moderated public conversation that actually involves the public on these and other matters. This may even be a requirement for a healthy society.
Unfortunately, current styles of "democracy" not only do not do this, they instead engage in deceptive propaganda to make it appear like they do this and more (how you can tell: observe how people praise "democracy", based on clearly silly memes). I often wonder if the quality of these institutions in an absolute sense (as opposed to a relative comparison to literal fascist dictatorships, the only other option dontchaknow) may have something to do with some people thinking they should be eliminated and replaced, a sentiment which is always and without exception represented as being dumb/etc.
Note also that these institutions also control school curriculum, which "denies" the public the skills needed to realize any of this is going on, how utterly riddled with error and deceit/delusion the public conversation is, etc.
take how Hidalgo is deprioritizing private automobiles on the streets of Paris
most of the public was passionately and intensely opposed to that, but she did it anyway
now, people can't imagine ever going back to how it was before - families being able to walk and ride bikes along the Seine and Rue de Rivoli is too nice
= asking for peoples opinion on stuff in lots of cases is just going to result in locking in status quo because people don't really know what they want, but they're usually pro status quo and opposed to change
It depends how you do it. For example, if you ask their opinion and then carry out that opinion without thinking about it, it would probably not yield optimum results, because humans almost always hallucinate (our culture teaches them this behavior). But with patient guidance I believe it is possible for people to improve over time.
As it is, we are at the mercy of bureaucrats with questionable ethics and goals, who also also always hallucinate (again, because of culture), so this is not a fantastic position to insist on maintaining either.
It has been well demonstrated that under very specific conditions, humans can achieve a state of high coherence. We've only managed this in a few select domains so far, because of hard work and counter-cultural attention to detail, and mainly: because a few individuals thought it seemed like a good idea, and made it happen against the odds. I personally think we can make it happen again, but not if no one tries.
> now, people can't imagine
Not quite. In fact, people cannot stop imagining, the problem is that they do not have control over it, or realize they are doing it. But we are in luck: we have children and teenagers, who have yet to fall victim to the hypnosis/Maya that has spread throughout the adult world. They could teach adults how to do it in a controlled manner, as we could in the past, or ideally even better (children and teenagers have never had enough say in decisions if you ask me, they are waaaaaaaay better than adults at specific forms and domains of thinking).
> asking for peoples opinion on stuff in lots of cases is just going to...
Local democracies on housing questions are extremely consistent the world over: no more people near me. If there absolutely must be more people near me, they better be exactly like me.
I agree. But then on the other hand, there is a wide variety of ways that can be brought to bear to "encourage" humans to change their minds.
Alternatively, we could [1] consider waking up for even a short period of time and put some mental effort into considering whether our most sacred operating system may not actually be what it is advertised (and thus: believed) to be.
Is it not rather funny that thousands of incredibly smart programmers, systems analysts, etc are not able to even consider whether the system that controls our lives and well being, not to mention the literal continued existence of many thousands of innocent people throughout the world could maybe be substantially improved?
Day after day we engage in the pointing of fingers, funny how the fingers never get pointed at ourselves.
[1] Well, I am speaking a bit loosely: the laws of physics in this environment support it, but that does not guarantee that it is completely supported.
Massive quantities of evidence exist demonstrating that human beings have at least some capacity to believe that they have concern for the well being of other humans.
Prime example: do you remember that big pandemic a few years ago? Do you remember how passionate most people were that everyone should go get their vaccinations, to protect each other? I sincerely think that these people genuinely believed that the feelings they were experiencing were sincere, and human belief even if non-genuine is an incredibly powerful force, maybe even the most powerful of all forces.
The charitable impulse in municipal housing politics gets you a cluster of tiny trailer homes on a parking lot surrounded by a 8 foot fence in an industrial part of town far away. Maybe, if you are feeling especially magnanimous, a servant’s outbuilding in the shadow of your house.
It’s not in human nature to give charity that would elevate others to the same or, God forbid, higher status as compared to the benefactor.
Wherever a young person, newcomer, or upstart has a reasonable chance of attaining what the incumbents enjoy, you’re probably going to find them taking it through market competition, not having it allocated to them by a vote of the incumbents.
Well, they don't live there, but they spend probably 10 hours/day there, or 60% of their waking hours. Where someone sleeps doesn't seem too important.
I would say what a person does with their life outside of their working hours is rather important actually, particularly when we're talking about the life and culture of a city.
Isn't it practically the same in Oslo, with rent control?
And I don't know about Zurich, but Monaco is clearly dying. Luckily they can build on the sea (and do so), but it suffered greatly from covid and Russia invasion of Ukraine, as without the Russian mob, a lot of 'amenities' aren't as available, which slow the 35yo+ fratboy life.
I don't get it either. Cities were dying for decades until people with money decided to move back into them and then they began to thrive. In fact, the actual data shows that as a city becomes more expensive it becomes more desirable and attracts more people and the city begins to grow. Places that were once considered off limits become spaces that are coveted. It's a flywheel that brings more and more prosperity. The best way to ruin that is to introduce masses of poor people to these areas. We did this in the starting in the late 1950's and the cities began to empty out because of the crime that came with it.
As the poor constituency builds greater numbers they attract politicians that promise them things by stealing from those with money. This in turn chases those people away and the city is left poorer and poorer and becomes worse and worse. Once nice areas become undesirable and decay sets in.
Are you suggesting there's a strong correlation between the number of low-salary workers living in the city and the presence of the Louvre or the Centre Pompidou?
Are you suggesting that nothing of cultural significance has happened in Paris since the Louvre opened as a museum in 1793? Or that Paris's culture can be reduced to a set of buildings?
>Are you suggesting that nothing of cultural significance has happened in Paris since the Louvre opened as a museum in 1793?
No; I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. In fact, that seems like a fairly strange statement given that I mentioned the Centre Pompidou (opened in the 1970s) in practically the same breath.
>Or that Paris's culture can be reduced to a set of buildings?
No; again, not sure where that's coming from.
My point, which you didn't address at all, was that you seemed to be implying that there was some kind of correlation between lower-income housing in cities and their cultural significance. Was that your goal? If so, can you explain further?
In a sentence: artists are poor. Hence the correlation. You can see this on a smaller scale with neighbourhoods in a given city. The culturally cutting edge neighbourhoods of NYC aren't the ones where all the rich people live.
Suppose you get a job offer, or your adult child has a newborn, or your aging parent's health takes a turn for the worse. Instead of being able to simply move, this instead starts a decade-scale process that has a 1% of chance of allocating you a public housing unit in the end. What does that do for dynamism?
People's intentions about when and where to move are important. A housing system that removes all individual agency from this question, abdicating everything to a government lottery/waiting list system, can meet other desiderata but is clearly losing something important.
Ok,think of the politician you dislike the most. Now imagine the discretion of "people of all ages backgrounds income levels etc" would fall to his or her purview to decide. Would you still support the system?
We should have a clear objective system of governance that allows even terrible people to oversee it
> Now imagine the discretion of "people of all ages backgrounds income levels etc" would fall to his or her purview to decide.
How much room for discretion is there actually in promoting diversity? I suppose you could forcibly break up poorer immigrant communities which would be pretty harmful.
It's simple, there are laws in the US that state that you cannot discriminate based on sex, religion, nationality, race, etc. if you would want to allow certain programs to help certain groups based on those characteristics you would have to lift those laws.
So I've thought about this before because the city I'm in has received the same critique. I'm in a 200-something thousand population city that's carrying a billion in debt, so about 5K EUR per inhabitant. Given your numbers that's pretty much about the same amount of city debt for each Parisian.
Big number scary, but looking at it on a per citizen basis is it really that big, or unreasonable a number? Assuming that this debt has been spent rationally on say infrastructure, social housing policies, QoL upgrades for xyz?
Yes, good fiscal policy to keep debt stable or reduce in the long term is necessary, but it sure doesn't seem as doom and gloom as people make it out to be.
You should see how much debt some countries are in... It's an order of magnitude more in the extreme cases.
It entirely depends on how the money is spent. If Paris is making investments that will enable it to substantially grow its tax base, it's a good prudent strategy, certainly better than the supposedly more fiscally responsible do-nothing strategy that can just as easily lead to financial ruin as irresponsible drunken-sailor spending.
> If Paris is making investments that will enable it to substantially grow its tax base
Obviously, this is not what they are doing, debts growing with quite high tax rises at the same time ("taxe fonciere" [property tax] doubled last year).
Paris is often depiected as a great model, especially by liberal foreign media, but the reality is rather different, and I believe that the Mayor's approval rating is currently abyssmal...
Not at all obvious. What is obvious is that returns on many investments, such as vastly improving housing and transportation for city residents, have multi-year lags. Like, obviously when you just spent billions on improving your RER, properly redesigning your streets to not be deadly by design anymore, and buying up housing, you'll be in the read that fiscal year.
>"taxe fonciere" [property tax] doubled last year
My French is rusty, but it was a 50% increase, it was previously the lowest of all cities in France, and it was not raised since 2011[0]. It is also peanuts compared to property taxes in Canada where I live, and especially compared to many parts of the US. Not an apples-to-apples comparison because property taxes pay for different things in different countries (i.e. in Canada provincial taxes pay for schools, in the US it comes out of your municipal property taxes). But still, we're not talking about one of the main taxes for an average French citizen, clearly.
You highlighted no facts, actually. The one fact was off by a factor of 2 and missing all context. What you call "nitpicking" is in fact the process of forming an opinion using facts and context. You could offer valuable insights, presumably being a Parisian, but instead you switch topics to beggars and crime. Oh well.
Debts ballooning and tax skyrocketing are facts. Everything I wrote are facts except of a small error in number but of course you chose to argue that the tax rise was 50% not 100% like if that made a difference to the point.
As I mentioned, rose-tinted glasses can be very strong, especially in people who have no insight but are looking for ideological reinforcement because, frankly, articles about how great Paris is in the NYT only serve that purpose, the readers will not know a thing about the actual situation.
Why does everybody need to concentrate in huge cities?
If Romans where able to relatively evenly spread their towns and population all over the place in the analogue age, then why aren't we able to do so in the digital age?
While being "huge", good European cities are quite homogenous throughout most of the area with 4-6 floor apartment buildings, small businesses in almost every building, parks, schools, good public transport system.
They don't feel exactly "huge".
The principles would be the same even if we concentrated on small cities. A city must promote social diversity to grow the quality of social interaction (even indirect interactions, like walking through a neighborhood built by different ideas and in different styles).
If you agree the city dies without people of all ages backgrounds and income levels what is your alternative proposal to subsidized housing. It's just a fact that some income levels are being priced out of the city and certain occupations may become entirely unavailable without some mechanism of solving that gap.
Building more types of housing. It's simple - allow people to build, allow denser construction, allow smaller apartments, etc. Hell most of NYC would not be allowed to be built today because the apartments are too small -- yet these are the most desirable areas...
Either you willingly misunderstood my comment, or you are so absolutist in your thinking that you're incapable of understanding the concept of a limiting principle in social policy.
Whoa whoa, dude. You're being unnecessarily hostile. GP's question was a fair one, and not (by my reading) unkindly phrased. Even if I'm wrong about that, personal attacks aren't welcome contributions: flag and move on.
