Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/17/realestate/paris-france-housing-costs.html

by mooreds • 2 years ago

314 616 2 years ago

trueduke• 2 years ago

afpx2• 2 years ago

Is Paris considered a great place to live? I've been there a couple times in the last few years, and it just seemed like every other big western city. (except for the police walking around with assault weapons.)

wk_end• 2 years ago

This is hard for me to imagine. Where in Paris were you? Which big western cities specifically do you feel like it resembled?

afpx2• 2 years ago

Sorry my communication skills aren’t great. It was a genuine question. I spent a total of 14 days there, but I’m an adventurous walker and covered much of the city. My expectations were too high, probably. (Too high expectations lead to disappointment)

cm21877• 2 years ago

I think like every city it has good parts and bad parts. Food is great, lots of stuff to do, employment is ok, the city is generally superb. But the population is irascible, the metro is a dark, overcrowded, grafiti covered, piss-stinking place, and the city is one gigantic traffic jam. Health and education is cheap, though state-run schools are in free fall and parents rush to put their kids in private schools. And the city is surrounded with poor neighbourhoods that are a ticking timebomb (with regular riots that are now spreading inside Paris).

jacktribe• 2 years ago

I'm surprised, to me it always looks & feels very different than most other Western cities, in part due to low-rise buildings and almost exclusively independently operated restaurants and shops.

Most other large European cities allowed for high rises and chain coffee shops & restaurants, to the point where they've started to become indistinguishable from one another.

bombcar19• 2 years ago

Paris has the CBD called La Défense which looked like most cities to me. Apparently tourists and residents alike hate it.

The rest of Paris is pretty "European city" and maybe I'm not tuned into the differences, but it seemed quite like Munich, Rome, or Barcelona except for the language, etc.

justin665• 2 years ago

except for the police walking around with assault weapons

So you've never been to North America. Where is it you're comparing Paris to, such that it seems like every other big western city?

samatman2• 2 years ago

I've been to most major American cities, and Toronto, and D.F., as well as Paris and Brussels.

What Paris and Brussels have in common with D.F., which they do not share with either the major American cities or Toronto, is police open-carrying machine guns.

MeImCounting2• 2 years ago

Having lived in america my whole life and been to many different major cities I can say that the police keep their long guns in the car generally.

bko7• 2 years ago

The problem with charging below market prices for anything is that it necessarily leads to a mismatch of supply and demand. So the question is how do you allocate that supply?

One way is to have hidden costs. This could range from straight up bribes, to paid consultants to fill out a lot of forms or talk to the right people, to just knowing someone

Another way is a lottery which benefits a tiny percentage of people. Sure it's "fair" but the incentive to rig it is huge

But even with a lottery it's still inefficient. If you give someone an apartment with a market rent of 4k for only 1k you're effectively giving them a 3k apartment subsidy. But if you handed them 3k, maybe they would spend 1k dollars on extra apartment and 2k for something else.

There are other distortions. Overall these are the worst kinds of policies because it's all hidden costs. If we realized that with a system like this we're giving 1 out of 1k eligible people the equivalent of a 30k a year transfer, we'd likely realize it's a ridiculous policy. But instead we just say how nice it is so and so is paying only 600 Euros to live in the center of Paris

bedobi10• 2 years ago

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.

bko7• 2 years ago

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

bboygravity• 2 years ago

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?

rafaelero2• 2 years ago

What do you mean cities need it not to die? Would you say Monaco is dead? What about Zurich? Oslo?

moconnor2• 2 years ago

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.

krona3• 2 years ago

A city NEEDS to have people of all ages, backgrounds, income levels etc in it to not die.

Correct. Therefore, subsidized housing is good and more of it is better? No, it does not follow.

What you say is correct, to a degree. Beyond that, it is incorrect. There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

rmbyrro3• 2 years ago

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.

mytailorisrich4• 2 years ago

Subsidies always have a cost on public finances.

In Paris' case, the financial situation is bad and getting worse with a debt on track to reach EUR10 billion.

So it seems to me that Paris is borrowing like there is no tomorrow. This usually does not end well.

closeparen6• 2 years ago

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.

BWStearns4• 2 years ago

I get these arguments against it and I'm sympathetic to the reasoning, but the point of public policy is results and the Parisian policy certainly seems to just work better than most US housing policy. SF, Boston, NYC also spend a ridiculous amount of money ostensibly trying to achieve similar outcomes but their approaches just don't work.

datameta• 2 years ago

Afaik 30% of all new luxury high rises are made low and middle income affordable and rent stabilized. In which ways is the NYC system inefficient? Do you believe that is due to policy, abuse by bad actors or some mixture of the two?

HDThoreaun5• 2 years ago

Paris housing works better than SF, Boston, or NYC because it is much denser, not because of public housing. American cities artificially limit density which drives up prices as everyone wants to live in the high demand area that cant densify.

bugglebeetle4• 2 years ago

And yet Vienna is one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the world, with its masses of public housing, while major U.S. cities have homelessness crises and TV shows about house flipping for profit. Perhaps we should stop debating things based on the hokum of Econ 101 textbooks and look at what in the real world has actually worked (e.g. abolishing most forms of zoning, massive investments in public housing, robust public transportation, drastically curbing real estate speculation).

brainwad3• 2 years ago

Vienna has had the luxury of having had relatively little demand for housing for over a century. The population peaked in WWI and still hasn't recovered (it was 2.24m in 1916, 2.00m in 2023).

ecshafer2• 2 years ago

The US also has a per capita GDP 50% higher than Austria ($52,131 vs $76,399). At $52,131 a year per capita GDP, Austria would be neatly in second to last place as the poorest state in the Union, as it would beat Mississippi at $47,190 but be beaten by West Virginia at $53,852. So perhaps the US policy is doing something correctly.

dangus2• 2 years ago

Basically, you’re assuming that this system is going to be like the underfunded and scarce public housing in the United States where a difficult to win lottery will be necessary to secure an apartment. In that sort of market of scarce supply, slumlords can overcharge for low quality rentals. But they couldn’t do that in a market where the government is offering a real alternative that you can actually get into. From the article it seems like the Parisian government has such a large supply of public housing that it is a serious market force that can influence the rest of the city and the makeup of its neighborhoods.

Your description of the situation sounds more like America where a tiny inventory of antiquated public housing units built ~40 years ago (the last time any American politicians cared to lift a finger to address poverty and inequality) are made available by a bleak lottery.

Just because the public housing system doesn’t work in America where it’s basically an afterthought doesn’t mean that it isn’t working in other places.

bko7• 2 years ago

Not Paris but NYC:

For many New Yorkers, the most desirable jackpot is not the New York Lotto, but to be selected in the city’s extraordinarily competitive affordable-housing lottery. Tens of thousands of people, and sometimes many more, vie for the handful of units available at a time. Since 2013, there have been more than 25 million applications submitted for roughly 40,000 units.

Central planning has been tried over and over and has failed and led to more scarcity. It's like fitting climate change by regulating thermometers. Maybe this time is different?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/nyregion/nyc-affordable-h...

Ragnarork6• 2 years ago

So the question is how do you allocate that supply?

To adress this specific question for Paris, they put an upper limit on your income to rent specific housing with lower rent.

I'll scale down your caricature of an example though, the offers you can see are usually 15% to 20% under market price, not 75% like you seem to imply.

Not exactly sure what is your point otherwise, the difference in terms of giving someone an apartment with a lower market rent vs. giving that money outright will eventually lead to the same thing, except that the former is also a way to curb the very high rent inflation (among other things), and results in both cases in a significant increase in purchasing power, at a given income.

If we realized that with a system like this we're giving 1 out of 1k eligible people the equivalent of a 30k a year transfer

This is not equivalent because giving someone that money doesn't mean they'll chose to live inside Paris, and this is a measure that goes beyond financial support. It's also a city policy aimed at achieving a specific population distribution.

bko7• 2 years ago

This is not equivalent because giving someone that money doesn't mean they'll chose to live inside Paris, and this is a measure that goes beyond financial support.It's also a city policy aimed at achieving a specific population distribution.

I don't know, I would prefer the autonomy to choose where I live and how I spend my money. Why don't we afford the same respect to people that are less well off? Why do we want to essentially force them to live somewhere expensive when they would prefer to use that money elsewhere? They're not some pawn you can use to feel good about yourself. "Oh look at all these people from different cultures that live here". They're human beings

nemo44x2• 2 years ago

To adress this specific question for Paris, they put an upper limit on your income to rent specific housing with lower rent.

Why would you ever want to incentive people to not earn more money? Stay poor and we'll give you a house - sounds like a bribe.

redandblack• 2 years ago

Market prices rarely (almost never) consider externalities - situations like this where it is a societal decision, it is difficult to define what we want, much less define a objective function that the market prices can optimize on.

Case in point - congestion pricing

I prefer excess housing / school / living infra which is subsidized by the society

eclipsetheworld• 2 years ago

Allocating public housing could be done through an auction system. Bidders would submit offers for annual rent. The surplus, after deducting costs, could then be allocated to buying or building additional housing for this program. Alternatively, it could be used directly to subsidize rent for low-income individuals.

In the end, this would solve the allocation problem while maximizing the available public housing. It would take a couple of years or decades to reach an equilibrium state I guess.

I'm probably missing something obvious here. Can somebody point out my mistake?

bko7• 2 years ago

You've literally described a market system.

A developer charges as much as they can for their rental units. If profitable they take that surplus and build new units up until the point that the marginal cost of providing an apartment is equal to the marginal revenue for renting such a unit. This isn't due to benevolence but how you maximize profit. The developer also pays taxes which pays for public services

So yes, I am in favor of this system.

throwaway63467• 2 years ago

It doesn’t take much to destroy a city with money, I can see it happen in a few cities in Europe now. Foreign money, mostly from non EU countries like Russia keeps pouring in raising the market value until no local can afford renting or owning an apartment anymore. Look at places like Sylt or some nicer towns in Switzerland or France, they basically got overrun by rich a••holes buying everything they could. Boggles my mind why people think it’s fair that local families compete with shady millionaires for living space.

rafaelero2• 2 years ago

Local families are the ones getting rich by having their houses surge in price. And they are probably also the reason why new houses are not being built.

schneems• 2 years ago

If the goal is to have a diverse economic mix of people to live in a city center, then let the results speak for themselves. If another city has the same goal and can achieve a better result with less resources then that’s worth considering.

The “they haven’t thought this through all the way” mantra you’ve espoused might be true. Also maybe you’ve not thought it all the way through. Maybe that has been tried and doesn’t work well for reasons. For example if you increase the flow of money into a market without increasing supply, prices tend to rise and the wealthier will absorb the rise better than the poorer. As you’ve helpfully pointed out, there are knock-on effects, however those effects don’t just apply to one side.

So that’s why I advocate for aligning and judging success on the goal and comparing like to like.

cultureswitch• 2 years ago

When someone rents a small apartment in the center of Paris for 4k on the private market in all likeliness they're paying more than 3k of pure rent profit to the owner.

The rent can be levied by the owner however the owner actually did not provide any of the investment or labor required to give the apartment the value it has. The apartment has value not because of anything inside the apartment or the building. It has value due to its location, something that the owner has no control over and did not spend a single penny to make more attractive.

This is obviously a huge inefficiency in the economy. Why should someone profit from the attractiveness of a location they haven't actually built? This is a positive externality.

Part of the solution of our huge housing crisis across most developed cities is obviously that there should just be more housing. This would bring prices down overall. However, new construction is extremely difficult, and that is due the in part to lobbies of wealthy owners which seek to keep prices high by maintaining scarcity.

Turning private rent housing into public housing is a good way to eliminate the economic inefficiency of rent in that one case and it also drives the price of nearby housing down too, as the private market has to compete with the public offering.

its_ethan4• 2 years ago

It has value due to its location, something that the owner has no control over and did not spend a single penny to make more attractive

To be fair, the owner is paying property taxes - which do go towards improving the location.

The apartment has value not because of anything inside the apartment or the building.

I think you'll find, in basically any city, that the quality of a building does correlate to it's rent price or value. You'll also find that owners do invest in increasing the quality of their buildings, which does improve the value or "niceness" of the location. If this wasn't true, gentrification couldn't exist.

Why should someone profit from the attractiveness of a location they haven't actually built?

If you're claiming that since no real identifiable person or group "built" the attractiveness of a location, and that therefore no one should get to profit from it, you'd be seriously tampering with the signal that the natural markets supply/demand provides in the form of rental prices. That's going to lead to some significant "economic inefficiencies" for the area in the medium to long term.

dugmartin• 2 years ago

You've left out a few things the landlord does and the risks they assume (at least here in the USA, I'm not sure about Paris):

   - mortgage costs
   - property taxes
   - insurance
   - utilities
   - repairs
   - maintenance
   - savings for large future capital outlays (new roof, furnace, etc)
   - renters not paying
   - empty rental units
   - loss of investment opportunities of the capital locked up in the building
   - possible loss of all income due to fire, etc
   - 34 other things I'll leave out

It may look like landlords have it easy but as a former commercial landlord I can tell you it is not easy at all.

WarOnPrivacy2• 2 years ago

"A city, if it’s only made up of poor people, is a disaster," said Mr. Apparu, who now works for a property developer. "And if it’s only made up of rich people, it’s not much better."

From a human+social position, I strongly agree with this. The value of social benevolence isn't limited to the direct beneficiaries and has positive impacts beyond the economics.

greyman• 2 years ago

But that literally never happens, each city contains both rich and poor people.

WarOnPrivacy2• 2 years ago

Strictly sure but the quote more addresses the experience that visitors, residents and prospective residents have.

kome• 2 years ago

it's not benevolence, it also makes economic sense. who does the menial job anyway? you should keep them close. if they will go to live far, their cost will increase, or their cost in time of traffic and pollution.

bedobi10• 2 years ago

The Mayor of Paris has bigger balls any other Mayor except maybe Barcelona

...and they're both women! The confidence to make radical, meaningful changes for the better of the people and tell the opposition to get stuffed... I wish all politicians had that.

nindalf• 2 years ago

I wish all politicians had that.

Even the politicians you disagree with? So for example, AfD in Germany making the radical, meaningful change for the better of the German people by removing non-Germans from Germany ... and telling you to get stuffed ... you'd love that presumably?

What you love is this policy. Don't confuse that with the method, which you clearly wouldn't like if the shoe was on the other foot.

arlort2• 2 years ago

Either I missed the part where the article mentioned the policy in paris being unconstitutional or that equivalence is overly-exaggerated at best

baud1472583• 2 years ago

it's mostly continuing the policies from the previous mayor... (who was male, but I don't see the relation).

throw__away73912• 2 years ago

NY is a mess of policy failure and rampant corruption in the implementation of these policies, policies which have for decades been championed by the NY Times, frequently by naive portrayals of policies in Western European countries like this one. Once imported at 5 times the cost and half the quality these become irrevocable subsidies for well connected landlords and administrators. The city needs to get basic things like sewage, security, and transit working before plowing any more money into subsidized housing.

darby_eight2• 2 years ago

security

Oh come on, the NYPD swallowed 5 billion in public funds, the most of any city on earth. Crime is near an all-time low. Hell, they could probably slash half that budget without causing the crime sprees the NY post implies could happen at any time. This is the worst excuse to avoid funding subsidized housing when the latter would probably have a greater impact on whether people were desperate enough to turn to crime. Saying NY needs to be more secure is just fear mongering at this point.

throw__away73912• 2 years ago

This is simply not true.

they could probably slash half that budget without causing the crime sprees

You're living in a world painted by your politics and oblivious to reality. I plan to return to the city someday if things improve, but things are horrible now and not moving in the right direction.

cm21877• 2 years ago

One quarter of residents in the French capital now live in government-owned housing, part of an aggressive effort to keep lower-income Parisians — and their businesses — in the city.

I think they meant "...and their votes"

tetris11• 2 years ago

expand?

eschulz• 2 years ago

The article mentions a woman who wept with joy when she received a "steal" of a lease for a new government owned building, and the article mentions that certain political parties have made this program a priority. Perhaps this woman will support such political parties with her vote in future elections.

cm21877• 2 years ago

The socialists who control the city have a majority but not a structural one (Paris was voting conservative for a long time). The gentrification of Paris would normally deplete their electorate, so you can see their efforts to buy prime real estate at high price to convert it to social housing as a very expensive vote-buying exercise.

maeln• 2 years ago

Not the same guy, but if a class of people have to move out of the city because they are being priced-out, they will not vote in this city anymore (but in their new city in the suburb), shifting the current political balance. The current Paris mayor is from the Parti Socialiste (left-wing / moderate left-wing - for France), and may get a lot of their vote from the working class people living in Parisian social housing. Therefor, they have an active interest in keeping them within the city.

The political theory is true but I have no idea if the people living in social housing do vote more for the current mayor though. So it is just theory.

arlort2• 2 years ago

They're saying it's done as an electoral bribe so that the people who benefit from this policy will vote for the party who did it

ketzo• 2 years ago

People always say this like a gotcha, but aren’t politicians supposed to do stuff that they think people will vote for?

ekianjo• 2 years ago

there are laws against giving financial incentives to voters... but they have been long forgotten

wheybags• 2 years ago

No, I want my politicians to declare what they want to do, and then I choose which one I agree with. I do not want them to get elected, then try to do what people want. That's backwards.

cm21877• 2 years ago

Only if it is good for the country, otherwise it is at best demagogy, at worst corruption. And in this case borderline with gerrymandering (not by pushing constituency limits but by engineering a change in demographics).

marcosdumay• 2 years ago

Politicians aren't supposed to manipulate the voters set by moving people around by decree.

That said, city planning is a complex thing so there's no easy answer to whether they are doing this.

marcusverus• 2 years ago

aren’t politicians supposed to do stuff that they think people will vote for?

This is generally true, but there is a line beyond which this becomes problematic.

Surely you wouldn't support explicit vote buying, where a politician promised to repay voters with public cash after the election! If such a scheme were permitted, democracy would quickly cease to become a marketplace for ideas. It would devolve into a patronage system. Most of us would immediately recognize such a scheme as dangerous and question the legitimacy of any so-called democratic government whose majority was bought in such a manner. Do you agree that this would be a problem?

Why would this cease to be a problem if the kickbacks were paid in-kind, and only made available to the poor?

dangus2• 2 years ago

This article reminded me of a thought I’ve often had: that the USA is a great place to live for the upper middle class and above, but it’s one of the worst wealthy countries to live in when you’re poor.

From the context of the USA it seems downright amazing to see a society where public housing isn’t automatically assumed to be a number of bad things: taxpayer waste, crime haven, and antiquated disrepair.

The benefits of the tenant management system also seems like it’s good for everyone in society. Our daily surroundings really shouldn’t be a race to the highest bidder for high-rent tenants like McDonald’s to come in, underpay employees, and poison local residents with junk food. The approach to the city as a public landlord being selective and building a neighborhood through balancing available goods and services seems incredibly desirable.

In the US this is all inverted the wrong way: the wealthy neighborhoods are the only ones that can keep chains like McDonald’s and Walmart out, walkability and positive urban fabric is a luxury amenity for the few (e.g., NYC, Miami, and Chicago’s best neighborhoods), and the wealthy are the ones that are subsidized instead of those who are low income or middle class.

theGnuMe• 2 years ago

Our daily surroundings really shouldn’t be a race to the highest bidder for high-rent tenants like McDonald’s to come in, underpay employees, and poison local residents with junk food.

A good term I heard for this was "strip mine society".

TimPC6• 2 years ago

I think the big issue is it's a lot harder to start social housing in 2024 when you have extremely limited historical action on it. But in general a city buying real estate is a hedge on real estate prices increasing in that city, which can be extremely useful for city budgets if you have any costs associate with housing some portion of the population. Most cities of a certain size find they can't function without some amount of social housing: the free market prices out entire occupations that cities need. Even someone as non-essential as a Barista is actually quite important in that many of the people in NYC want to be able to buy coffee. But you aren't going to get Starbucks to pay the $20+ /hour needed for them to rent within a reasonable commute of where they live.

There are also questions about how much of out of control rents employers are responsible for and should bear the cost of, and how much it is the cities fault. To the degree to which rental prices are high because of politician supported NIMBYism it seems fairer for city budgets to bear those costs than third parties.

bombcar19• 2 years ago

The other option is to greatly improve transportation where you can live 50 miles outside the city and still get to work in under 30 minutes.

This is very hard to do as you need exceptionally fast trains and well developed feeder lines.

0823498723498726• 2 years ago

I've often suspected third world countries stay "third world" because being rich in a poor country makes it a great place to live?

(just as the second world countries which bordered the first seem to have done better than their ideological cores, it seems to me that first world countries which bordered the second have also done better)

jart• 2 years ago

Poison? More like extremely nutritious and very cheap. Maybe too nutritious. Thanks to modern technology, even the poorest among us can afford to look like King Henry VIII. Would you take that privilege away from them?

ilikehurdles2• 2 years ago

Boutique shops and artisinal fares aren’t what poor immigrants to the USA are looking for. Being poor in the USA already means you’re better off than you’d be in most of those “wealthy countries’” in income. The bottom 10% in the US have a life index on par with or better than the top 10% in most European countries. The lowest 20% in America consume like an average person in a wealthy European country. Meanwhile my cousin is a third generation German and still gets called Ausländer by her teachers (who get to decide for her which academic future she’s allowed to have).

Every poor immigrant family I know from around the early 2000s, ourselves included, now _owns_ at least one house. Their kids went to college, people started businesses.

Also if you haven’t seen chains in <wealthy European city> pay less attention to McDonald’s and more attention to luxury clothing brands. Trust me, unlike Subways, you won’t be seeing Europe’s poor in any of these places. And for what it’s worth, Paris is swarming with homelessness, including that of small children. The fact you see the opposite written in the New York Times should be a clue that they’ve got a reason to skew that reality otherwise.

Ylpertnodi• 2 years ago

The bottom 10% in the US have a life index on par with or better than the top 10% in most European countries.

Not convinced.

bombcar19• 2 years ago

In the USA the government does things like this by subsidies to private people and businesses (section 8 housing is somewhat similar and is paid to landlords).

If the government wants to do this, they really should cut out the middle man and do it directly - purchase the building at something akin to fair market value and manage it themselves going forward.

patwolf• 2 years ago

Every Thursday, Jacques Baudrier, the Paris city councilor in charge of housing, scrolls through the list of properties being exchanged by sellers and buyers on the private market. With some exceptions, the city has the legal right to pre-empt the sale of a building, buy the property and convert it to public housing.

What are the mechanics of how this works? If I agree to buy a property for a million dollars, does the city get a chance to match that price?

drdo• 2 years ago

Yes, that's pretty much how it works. The city has the right to become the buyer for the specified price for any property sale.

baud1472583• 2 years ago

What are the mechanics of how this works? If I agree to buy a property for a million dollars, does the city get a chance to match that price?

there's a French wiki page on this: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_de_pr%C3%A9emption_urbai...

But basically, yes, the city has 2 months to match the price. The city can also offer a lower price, which can be refused (so no sale at all) or can be argued in front of a special judge, who'd rule if the price offered by the city is acceptable, depending on the local housing market.

It's not a rule that's specific to Paris, but which is applicable in most French cities.

bertjk• 2 years ago

So does this mean that every sale of any building can take at least two months?

thope• 2 years ago

No, pre-empt here means you don't have a word, the town (commune) has priority and you can't make an offer

Ragnarork6• 2 years ago

Basically, if your property is eligible for preemption, you have to declare that you intend to sell (at the price you wish) to the city, which can then tell you that

- they don't intend to buy, in which case you can proceed with the sale

- they buy at the price you've set

- they make a counter-offer, which you have the right to refuse but then you also renounce to sell

If there's a dispute on the price (especially in the third case), a tribunal will decide the eventual price, "based on the recent sale prices of similar properties".

bluefirebrand4• 2 years ago

I tend to lean lefty, but this scheme makes me understand why libertarians want less government

How much my home is worth should not be capped by whatever government thinks. That's bs

If government is counter offering all of my neighbors and they are accepting it, then I am screwed. I either accept the government counter offer or I go to tribunal who will cite all of the government's recent purchases from my neighbors to set the price at something very close to that anyways

And if I don't like it, I'm legally not allowed to sell?

Ridiculous

Even if you don't think houses should be infinitely appreciating assets, which I don't, your asset worth should still be as valuable as someone is willing to pay for them, not controlled by a cartel style government

zozbot234• 2 years ago

It's essentially the same as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_first_refusal

adolph3• 2 years ago

the city has the legal right to pre-empt the sale of a building, buy the property and convert it to public housing

Sounds like every property sale is a political calculation ready for grease.

mumblemumble• 2 years ago

My understanding is that excise taxation is generally agreed upon as the preferred method for governments to manipulate the market, both because it incurs fewer deadweight losses and because it tends to actually work better.

So, what if we get rid of all these complicated rent control and rent freezes and affordable housing schemes, and instead just implement a rent tax, to be paid by the landlord, and make it progressive? I don't know exactly how it should scale; you wouldn't want it to be just by rent because that would have a regressive impact on families who have kids, because they need more space and more space naturally costs more. Maybe price per square foot?

At least in my city this would probably also reduce real estate prices in general, because a huge source of demand for houses is actually real estate speculators who buy up houses and then put them on the market as rental units. I gather, based on one conversation with an acquaintance who had been a realtor but was looking to pivot into this line of business, is that a lot of what's fueling that is, in effect, not-exactly-loopholes in US and local housing, lending and tax laws - many of which are ostensibly aimed at making housing more affordable - that allow people with sufficient resources to financially engineer together a speculative source of income while externalizing all the risk onto everyone but themselves.

_3u103• 2 years ago

Most demand for houses is from people. Most price increases are due to a lack of supply that exceeds population growth. Most lack of supply is caused by it being illegal to build higher / more dense, and a variety of other rules and regulations.

Landlords are for the most part capitalizing on these broader market / regulatory trends.

catlikesshrimp• 2 years ago

I don't understand the downvotes. I honestly think what that is saying is true in a black and white way.

Grandparent says: "get rid of all these complicated rent control and rent freezes and affordable housing scheme..."

I think this is fertile for discussion. Rent freezes didn't work in Argentina (extreme example), my opinion is they don't work anywhere. But oversupply does reduce prices, as happened with evergrande in China.

IMO interest in not having an oversupply bursting a bubble is precisely what parent is talking about.

Again, in a very absolute way of looking at life.

HenriTEL3• 2 years ago

No, price increase is mostly due to inflation trends. When there is an inflation trend the house market follows, for example in London, after the start of the war in Ukraine things like gas and gasoline price went up which created a legit price increase for products that depends on those. But we've also seen an increase in rent. And that's because estate agents knew that since there was an inflation trend people were expecting to pay more. So the whole market went up with no significant change in supply and demand.

tmnvix3• 2 years ago

Most price increases are due to a lack of supply that exceeds population growth.

Citation definitely needed.

In my opinion, cheap credit (i.e. low interest rates) is the primary culprit. It has created an awful lot of 'artificial demand' for properties as investments as opposed to demand for properties to be used as homes. In most markets I look at, the proportion of underutilised properties has been rising (second homes, short term rentals, land banking, etc).

Here in NZ the sharp rise in interest rates caused a sudden and significant increase in homes available for sale and homes available to rent. Where did they come from?

jeffbee3• 2 years ago

People who don't understand market pricing are against rent taxes because they think landlords can pass them through.

BoiledCabbage• 2 years ago

And people who don't understand supply and demand think rent taxes are a solution to a lack of housing stock.

pas• 2 years ago

how could/would they not?

everything is paid by the renters, and if the price is not high enough (to turn a risk-weighted profit) it will be removed from the market.

(if there's a high enough vacancy tax and/or security costs against squatting, then eventually it will be sold. which is a one time boon for the market, but it ends up crowding out new developments for a while, and altogether this just leads to crazy waitlists and the usual discrimination.)

adolph3• 2 years ago

People who don't understand market pricing are against rent taxes because they think landlords can pass them through.

If all rents are taxed, what is the market mechanism to avoid pass though?

It seems as if a more fair approach would be to increase tax rates on income from rents. That way a rentier would not defer maintenance, the costs of which would be deducted from income and not taxed, as opposed to front-loading the tax to the rent transaction and thus encouraging deferred maintenance to preserve income.

dv_dt3• 2 years ago

There are failures of excise taxation to address the problem, in part due to political objections and blocks to taxation in the first place, while there are very long running examples of quality public housing making a competitive check on excess private rents in city markets.

pjc503• 2 years ago

The problem with taxing rent is you have to ask: do you also tax the "imputed rent" of owner-occupiers?

It's politically difficult to do so, but if you don't you end up with an even bigger barrier to mobility and entry to the property class as you have to pay more until you can save up for a deposit.

(I don't think you can make the tax incidence on renters zero)

alexb_• 2 years ago

You've re-invented Land Value Tax, which absolutely 100% should be everywhere.

mebazaa2• 2 years ago

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• 2 years 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.

spaniard892772• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

SV_BubbleTime3• 2 years ago

Do you live in one of these places?

rTX5CMRXIfFG• 2 years 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.

rsynnott10• 2 years ago

It can certainly cause light issues, but I'm not sure why it would cause _congestion_?

digging18• 2 years ago

Light pollution is relatively easily solved, there's just not much will to do so. Noise pollution is best solved by reducing car-dependency which is a non-starter in most North American cities; I can't speak for Europe but I understand Paris to have undertaken a serious revolution in purging cars within the past decade.

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

Thankfully Paris was also super super super smart & has rapidly developed dedicated bike infrastructure that is incredibly popular & nice to use. It rapidly reduces the need for cars for many many people.

They also are restricting the use of cars in their city center, which will help force de-car'ing for casual use & make people take efficient less demanding forms of transit.

This should help keep congestion & din from being aggravating!

dionidium• 2 years ago

As someone who lives in an area with plenty of high-density residential buildings

And yet you live there, which means, presumably, that it's your best option relative to the alternatives. People should be allowed to choose living arrangements that meet their most critical needs, even if they also find reasons to complain about aspects of those arrangements that are self-evidently less important to them.

s_dev• 2 years ago

France already has some of the most densely populated cities in the world, Paris is #32. French cities feel less congested than the likes of US cities because it has better cycling infrastructure and public transport options. High population density is not a cure for the bias car infrastructure imposes on a city. So your recipe will need to take more in to account than just density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popul...

gxs2• 2 years ago

This is a huge problem with housing in general that is mostly ignored.

Let people build 4 units where today it's zone for 1, and if you disagree, you're an out of touch racist/classist/luddite who is just not a visionary and can't embrace the future.

Surely nothing bad is going to happen when you take a subdivision with 30 homes and take just 10 of those and turn them into quadplexes.

30 homes might approximate something like 60 cars and 60 children.

Now instead of 30 homes, you have 20 + 10*4 = 60 homes.

You're now asking infrastructure that hasn't been touched since the 60s to accommodate nearly twice as many people. And I get that not every new unit will also have 2 children, but some will and it no doubt leads to a net increase.

Where as before the road leading out your development had to accommodate 50 cars in the morning commute, now it has to handle more than 100. And this is just a minor inconvenience.

The real issues arise when you've doubled the amount of school children, but the number of teachers hires or classrooms built hasn't increased, and let's not even talk about teacher salaries.

Then there are utilities and other public services (first responders, etc.)

This was just one small subdivision with 30 homes, now imagine this happening across multiple parts of town at once and you can see the problem.

All that is to say, I've never been against building more housing (omg build up! it's so easy!), what I'm against is building more housing without proportional investments everywhere else.

It's a hard problem to solve, I admit it, but that's my whole point. It's hard, you can't just build more housing and call it a day.

ketralnis• 2 years ago

As someone who lives in an area with plenty of high-density residential buildings, I can attest that I love it and I wish there were more American cities that were an option for my lifestyle.

jorvi• 2 years ago

Cool cool, except the situation is dire and people need a roof over their head. Other priorities can wait.

wolverine8763• 2 years ago

congested cities with such intense light and noise pollution

I'm not sure how you mean that. Obviously you know that many people love cities with lots of tall buildings, NYC being the obvious US example. Clearly you don't like them, but are you saying the busy-ness is inherently bad? If you don't like it, can you leave? Usually, that's an expensive place to live.

carabiner• 2 years ago

Part of the draw of a city is bustling night life. You don't move to Manhattan for dark skies.

CalRobert2• 2 years ago

What is making the noise?

justinator• 2 years ago

It's literally been dubbed the City of Light and the highest density cities in France already. It's not even close.

enaaem• 2 years ago

Cities aren’t loud. Cars are.

asimovfan• 2 years 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• 2 years 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.

GuB-42• 2 years 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• 2 years 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

amelius2• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Maybe they should start charging for that ...

Let's call it "taxes".

bombcar19• 2 years 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.

AnimalMuppet2• 2 years ago

Rich people need to keep encountering not-rich people, rather than just live in a rich-person bubble. They need that, whether or not they want that.

littlestymaar• 2 years 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.

cm21877• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

parisians will pay for this with high taxes for a very long time

Is that a bad thing?

othello• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

Manhattan has a population density of 28,154 per sqkm according to Wikipedia?

presentation2• 2 years 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.

retinaros5• 2 years 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

retinaros5• 2 years 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• 2 years ago

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

alienicecream• 2 years ago

But it hasn't stayed Paris, it's overrun with North African "migrants". Why put a bald faced lie on it?

Deprogrammer9• 2 years ago

If the USA didn't endlessly fund war then maybe they could invest in their cities & infrastructure more. Probably not going to happen anytime soon by the looks of things.

detourdog3• 2 years ago

What is interesting is that after WW2 Europe had to rebuild and the USA was left with a great industrial machine that had a capacity that outstripped demand.

derelicta• 2 years ago

The Empire needs to wage war in order to expand its reach and thus sell its goods there/exploit the local labour, otherwise it falls.

UncleEntity7• 2 years ago

I would absolutely love for European countries to pay the true cost of their defense so I can drive on nice roads and children could be taught by people who make a decent wage.

Probably not going to happen anytime soon by the looks of things.

rmbyrro3• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/wx7yj

thuuuomas• 2 years ago

Why was this headline changed in such an editorializing way? “Mixed society” is a loaded term not present in the original headline.

lucaspfeifer• 2 years ago

What do you find 'loaded' about the phrase 'mixed society'? It is more descriptive than the meaningless phrase in the original headline: "How Does Paris Stay Paris?".

brainwad3• 2 years ago

Possibly because it presumes Paris is 'mixed', but actually the city of Paris is notably better off than the surrounding suburbs, especially the ones on the north/east. This has some good maps: https://medium.com/perspective-critique/the-geography-of-ine...

mp05• 2 years ago

Can't help but be reminded of this classic:

THE VILLAS AT KENNYS HOUSE

The most sought after address in all of South park for only the very privileged few. You can take in the views from the deck spa and enjoy the mixed Sodosopa culture. Also, featuring a private fitness center, clubhouse and so much more. Welcome home.

https://southpark.cc.com/w/index.php/The_Villas_at_Kennys_Ho...

TacticalCoder• 2 years ago

Yup this makes no sense. Note that the original is also wrong: "How does Paris stays Paris...".

To me Paris is not Paris at all anymore.

The government is in damage control before the olympic games and shall try to hide that Paris is not Paris anymore but Paris honestly became a sad thing to see.

There are many tourists having an actual shock and it can be really bad: if I'm not mistaken japanese even have a hotline they can call if they're in shock when they discover the shithole that Paris as become as opposed to the rosy picture of Paris that is painted abroad.

rsynnott10• 2 years ago

But, I mean... Paris was _never_ that fantasy version of Paris, or anything like it? Though arguably it's a lot more like it today than it was, say, a century ago, or two centuries.

93po• 2 years ago

Paris syndrome is fairly over-hyped. From wiki:

"Although the BBC reported in 2006 that the Japanese embassy in Paris had a "24-hour hotline for those suffering from severe culture shock",[4] the Japanese embassy states[clarification needed] no such hotline exists[clarification needed].[9][10] Also in 2006, Miyuki Kusama, of the Japanese embassy in Paris, told The Guardian "There are around 20 cases a year of the syndrome and it has been happening for several years", and that the embassy had repatriated at least four Japanese citizens that year.[11]"

Out of a million people who are Japanese that visit Paris every year, a dozen of them having shock at the reality of the city isn't that noteworthy honestly, and I imagine there are more Americans that do this than Japanese people.

jimbokun2• 2 years ago

I went to Paris on vacation last year, and there was garbage piled head high on the sidewalks and multiple riots in the city protesting the pension changes while we were there.

We had a wonderful time.

The riots are scheduled ahead of time, so we knew where and when to avoid. The garbage was not pleasant. But did not stop us from enjoying awesome cultural and culinary and sight seeing experiences.

From what I can tell, this Paris has always been Paris. It's always been rich versus poor, often far more violently than what I describe.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

I've been there every now and then over twenty years. None of this Paris isn't Paris any more. Pretty much normal changing of a city.

thisislife2• 2 years ago

Could be due to HN title's limit? For example, I tried to submit a story with this title - Google blocks man’s email account over nude childhood photo; Gujarat HC issues notice to firm - but it exceeds HN's title word limit. So I had to edit it to - Google blocks email account over nude toddler photo; Court issues notice to firm ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39756841 ) to fit it within the word limit. Now, I get the use of "toddler" instead of "childhood" in the title does cause a slight loss of context, but it's the closest match I could think of to retain most of the headline as HN guidelines demand. So the "editorialising" could just be as simple as us trying to be "editors" on HN to meet its guidelines, rather than politics. (Also, I didn't find the term offensive and feel the submitted title is much better than the actual title on the article).

lode• 2 years ago

It looks like the New York Times changed it. The title in the <title> tag is the same as this post, in the article header they changed it.

ahoy• 2 years ago

The title of this post is taken from the linked page's title element. It's likely that the NYT changed the headline on the page after publication but did not update the title element to match. Happens all the time

Fripplebubby• 2 years ago

I think it's a direct translation of the French phrase "mixité sociale" mentioned in the article, I bet the connotations are slightly different in English than in French.

0823498723498726• 2 years ago

Before the invention of the elevator, buildings were more naturally mixed-use: shops (and stables?) on the ground floor, posh tenants on the first, all the way up to artists and baristas in their garrets under the roof.

By democratising travel within a building, ironically the elevator made it possible to have neighbourhoods for which service workers had to commute primarily from the outside along the x and y axes, not merely within the neighbourhood along the z.

bedobi10• 2 years ago

this makes zero sense, plenty of cities with housing built mostly after the invention of the elevator that have mixed use neighborhoods with tall, low and medium height buildings alike

0823498723498726• 2 years ago

Yes, and those cities also presumably don't have the problem of segregated neighbourhoods. (also those cities don't tend to occur in my Old Country, but perhaps they've made progress there since I've been gone? Protip: never attempt to live in a "city" which is younger than you are. Survivre plutôt que vivre)

All I was claiming is that the elevator is necessary but not sufficient: monocultural neighbourhoods were much less likely to arise back when number of flights of stairs put a significant natural gradient on the price point of each buildable unit.

rsynnott10• 2 years ago

all the way up to artists and baristas in their garrets under the roof.

I don't think there was any significant crossover between lifts not existing and _baristas_ existing. For a start, lifts predate proper espresso machines.

0823498723498726• 2 years ago

Good point; please substitute the appropriate word for the service worker who doles out glasses of wine from behind a zinc counter. (or did zinc also postdate lifts?)

hokkos• 2 years ago

The reality of this housing policies is that it is currently bankrupting the city of Paris with a skyrocketing debt and growing local taxes. They spent enormous sum of money to buy old buildings at the historical peak of their price, buildings ill-fitted to house poor wide families and sometimes in very expansive neighborhood where they have to travel far to get access to cheaper groceries. Also the delta between the low rent and the theoretical market rate for the housing is insane, this is equivalent to several thousand euros in untaxed shadow income, all from randomness or special favor. All with the goal to transform 40% of the housing in socialised ones, this is a power grab of the mayor to assure them votes for the future and has always been the strategy of the communist towns surrounding Paris.

digging18• 2 years ago

I love how "giving poor people comfort" is always actually a "power grab."

I'm sure it does have political benefits for the mayor, but that's also a natural outcome of good policy. (Not the only one; often good policy actually has horrible backlash.)

This comment could be expressing some true ideas but I don't find it trustworthy.

its_ethan4• 2 years ago

There's a line somewhere where "giving poor people comfort" goes from providing good and useful social services to essentially a bribe. Where that line is varies based on who you ask - for some it's student debt cancellation (a US thing), for others it's $1000+ subsidies for housing, other people may not see any service the government provides as a "bribe" of any sort.

Caring about these bribes/"power grabs" is important (even if this guys comment strikes you as trollish). Just because you agree with a social service to benefit some group doesn't mean that the people in power won't abuse their power in the future. They might abuse their support by holding these social services (or "comforts") hostage. Once you have people who have adapted to living in their subsidized housing (which can/will happen quickly) you open the door for political leaders to say "you must vote for me or tolerate my bad behavior or else this goes away".

Even if the method by which "this goes away" is that the opposing political group would be the one to remove the social service, it's something that needs to be considered. To circle back, if you do something that is considered beyond the line of "comfort for poor people" and is seen as a "power grab" by enough people - you're more likely to have the opposition emboldened to eventually remove that service.

webkike• 2 years ago

Can you provide some sources on the Paris city’s budget and debt? I couldn’t find anything on it. France’s debt looks roughly linear, which I imagine would support Paris a lot

conradfr• 2 years ago

https://cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/lep...

its_ethan4• 2 years ago

This is maybe interesting or useful: https://www.worlddata.info/europe/france/debt.php

It's a comparison of the debt per capita of France compared to the rest of the EU (in USD). It looks to me like France started to take on more debt per person around 2007/08 and as recently as 2022 had $13k more debt/capita than the EU, or +40% more debt per citizen.

SV_BubbleTime3• 2 years ago

Editorialized title. Just seems like virtue signaling to me. Unless anyone has a reason that it isn’t?

I was recently in Paris, the comments here are a touch different in tone than the Parisians I talked to.

6bb32646d83d• 2 years ago

Unfortunately it means it's extremely hard to live in Paris if you're middle class.

If you're upper middle class/rich, you can rent/buy. If you're poor, you get a chance to get public housing. If you're middle class, too bad for you.

jajko• 2 years ago

You can put this on whole France, this is general approach at least for past few decades.

Ultra rich easily bypass all those populist moves to 'tax rich', poor have sometimes unreasonable protections (ie you can just stop paying rent, give big FU to the owner, change locks and maybe, theoretically after 6 months of courts he can evict you on his costs, while you trash the place into nothing without any recourse - some real cases of friends living there).

Its outright the worst possible place in whole Europe to be rich (again, those ultra rich are off the quite corrupt system, just check all (super)yachts in whole Cote d'Azur), government goes after you like a rabid dog, inheritance tax is easily 40%. All the bankers I've talked to (not professionally, I am just a normal guy) advised against any investment in that country before you cross ultra high net worth line, then all this disappears.

Yet absolutely nobody strikes against this corruption and unfairness, middle class just buckles up and continues, at least whats left of it.

sangnoir3• 2 years ago

Its outright the worst possible place in whole Europe to be rich

I guess it's a good thing Europe has free movement! They are free to be rich in Amsterdam, Berlin or Brussels. If the wealth is generated in France, then they should put up with the French inconveniences.

mrtksn• 2 years ago

That's the same everywhere in the developed world. If you are too poor you are taken care of through social programs(even in the USA), if you are rich you take care of yourself but if you are middle class you will have to fight for this privilege everyday.

It goes the same for the social norms. If you are poor you can have a trashy sex life and say whatever you like, if you are rich you also can have a trashy sex life and say whatever you like but if you are middle class you must have stable monogamous relationship with somebody of similar background and age(you can't just have sex with anyone between 18 and 80 and throw a scene, unlike the rich and the poor) and watch your mouth.

IncreasePosts3• 2 years ago

The poor get a chance but not a very good one.

bigmattystyles• 2 years ago

Wowow, the rich have had it tough since the 90s (only the French born before 1988 or so will understand the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM

johnchristopher• 2 years ago

Wowow, the rich have had it tough since the 90s (only the French born before 1988 or so will understand the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1N3WXZ_1LM

Hahaha, it's not one of my favourites these days but it was all over the place at that time :D.

edit: here's a more recent take https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maObYlDIRcw

locallost2• 2 years ago

Is it that much different from anywhere else in that regard? The fact the poorer people get something, doesn't mean they lose something. I'd guess on average despite higher cost of living, they wouldn't trade places.

yardie• 2 years ago

I'm middle class and lived in Paris. I had rich friends and poor friends. My rich friends owned flats that occupied entire floors of a building. My poor friends got whatever social housing was available. And my middle class friends rented or bought a place in the suburbs with more space. We owned, a relatively small by American standards 55sqm, 3F, flat in the city center. My middle class friends could also rent the same size flat on their salaries but none of them wanted to. They liked their space and garden.

Their is give and take to everything in life. I don't think it's hard to live in Paris if you're in the middle class, but you certainly won't feel middle class doing it.

HenriTEL3• 2 years ago

With 2 children you'll need about 65sqm. Hopefully the nursery is cheap compared to other cities -cough London- but it adds up. Basically you need to be in the upper middle class for a decent life with children in Paris.

mlrtime7• 2 years ago

No middle class family in America has a family in 600 sq feet.

You'd be hard pressed to even find this outside of a few areas in NYC.

retinaros5• 2 years ago

highly doubt the last decade has been a nice time to be middle class in paros. salaries unlike us major cities never rose and real instate kept increasing. average is 10k sqm which requires you to at minimum make over 100k/year to have a 40sqm flat not in top paris estate

give us more data to understand if you define yourself as middle class. salary, rent, wealth beside salary. thanks.

olivierduval• 2 years ago

The article is quite... disappointing for a french Parisian.

Let's make things clear: so called "mixed society" is actually a mix of "friends of the Mayor and allies" and poor-enough people that will vote for the so-called socialist Mayor. It's not about having a philosophical or idealogical view of society, only a practical view of election (a kind of "gerrymanding" if this concept is more understandable for US).

There has been frequent scandals with ministers still using "low income" housing for themselves or families. The article starts with the interview of some Ms Vallery-Radot, and that uncommon name prompted me to look on internet and wonder if she is related to the https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallery-Radot which was until the 2000 ... State Advisor.

So please... do not think that Paris is some kind of wonderful place where intelligent and humanistic leaders are working for the good of the french society as an example to the world. It's just usual political shady business, nepotism (and you'll see by yourself that the results will be bad during the Olympics for example)

bugglebeetle4• 2 years ago

By American standards, these would be eminently “intelligent and humanistic leaders.” NYC is ran by a crooked cop, who is under investigation for taking bribes from Turkey, while slashing the budget for schools and libraries so he can give more money to his “constantly defrauding the government” police gang. LA is such a wildly corrupt city, it’s hard to pick where to start, but several city council members were just caught on tape trying to explicitly screw over renters, rig an election against one of their left wing opponents, all while making racist comments to boot. The city also takes in billions in tax revenue for “affordable housing” schemes that go almost entirely to lining the pockets of cronies and party insiders through various fronts and nonprofits.

smeej4• 2 years ago

The program has allowed Mr. Chaillou and his wife to raise their two boys in the city. But he knows that the future of social housing will always face at least one big challenge: “The problem is that once you get in, you never want to leave.”

I think this is the reason so many in the U.S. are skeptical of/resistant to such plans. Why work your butt off for 10 years to get to a place where you can afford a nice dwelling if you can also wait 10 years, working but not pushing yourself, and someone else will pay for it for you? And then once you have it, there's even less incentive to try to "move up" from there, because there's now a cliff in front of you. You have to make the whole jump in one go, because if you only take incremental steps, you lose eligibility for your subsidies.

American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck. As often as possible, we want to think it's earned. The idea of trying to make up for some of the luck factor by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant, even if it might lead to higher quality of life for everyone involved.

jvanderbot3• 2 years ago

instinctively repugnant

To some.

In very-red areas that I have relatives, they're happy to do a food drive, make donations, help pay for weddings or funerals, or show up to help repair houses. When you have 100 cousins and 10 brothers, this is a viable option.

They frequent each others businesses, work on interconnected industries, and in general help out however they can.

It's not instinctively repugnant to help, or to give, it's instinctively repugnant to give outside their community. That seems a more fundamental problem with tax-rich/give-poor mentality. These folks make tons of charitable donations in money, in kind, and in time, but oppose wealth redistribution.

ericmcer• 2 years ago

I think it is most repugnant when you are working really hard and (very slowly) building your life up.

It was really easy to be charitable when I was young and working meaningless jobs for $15/hr and I had my whole life ahead, and it will probably be easy when I am retired and no longer feel the strain of 50/hr workweeks.

For now though it is brutal watching taxes eat huge chunks of your income so they can spend flagrantly.

snowwrestler• 2 years ago

The hidden issue here is the effort of people with means to shape their community by expelling or excluding people they don’t want to help. Then their voluntary donations etc only help those whom they want to help.

Well-known examples in the U.S. include the use of legal covenants, red lining, Jim Crow laws, and sometimes blatant intimidation to shape who can own which property where. Such changes persist for decades because of the illiquidity of property in general and the compounding effect of wealth discrepancies.

So “outside their communities” is not a neutral, or purely geographic concept. Communities don’t just happen, they are intentionally constructed.

U.S. governments, in contrast, are ostensibly bound by the republican concept generally and the 14th Amendment specifically, to provide protection and service equally. Even if the citizens in question don’t fit the preferred local definition of “who we want to help.”

Edit add: I’m posting this because I think it helps clarify why some folks want government programs to exist to address social problems, as opposed to just counting on voluntary aid to solve it all.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I think government programs are perfect or without flaws. I actually agree with the comments above that point out how means-tested programs can create incentives to “stand pat” and not try for incremental improvements. It’s policy problem that is well known but hard to fix.

WaitWaitWha• 2 years ago

by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant

I think the first part of this statement is crucial to the full meaning. It is not about charity[0]. It is about redistribution of wealth by force is repugnant.

[0] This 2022 reports states US is #3 in charity (giving). https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-resea...

callalex• 2 years ago

Except for their gay cousin, their atheist cousin, their trans cousin, their mixed-race cousin…

mrguyorama5• 2 years ago

In very-red areas that I have relatives, they're happy to do a food drive, make donations, help pay for weddings or funerals, or show up to help repair houses

Unless you are gay, trans, not the right kind of christian, have mental issues, are progressive in any way, are willing at all to contradict their absurd views of reality, want cheaper electricity through green energy, want any form of public transit, their family member has beef with you, you dared to question the authority of the local PD, you dare to question that drag queens are a threat, you think maybe gun control could have prevented the local school shooting or that the PD in that town could have done better and should be fired.

The belief that actually rural people are really nice and altruistic is just laughable. Having grown up with them, they will only help you if you are the "right kind" of person, IE, if you are useful or beneficial to them. My white, catholic, french mom in a city of 9000 was completely ostracized, despite knowing every single family, and being a very generous and nice person, because she didn't have the right last name.

Insular rural communities are all about local tyrannies, and local cliques, and if for ANY reason, no matter how tenuous or bullshit or even made up, you WILL be excluded if the local popular club doesn't like you. It's basically high school, which makes sense when you remember most rural communities are entirely made up of people who didn't do anything past high school and basically have not grown beyond that as people.

It's not instinctively repugnant to help, or to give, it's instinctively repugnant to give outside their community.

These are the same concepts. Being unwilling to help outside your community IS being unwilling to help.

SequoiaHope• 2 years ago

Agreed. As David Harvey says, “wealth redistribution is the lowest form of socialism”. I suspect he would say that mutual aid is the highest, and counter to many common narratives in our society rural conservatives are very pro mutual aid. I would speculate that it’s primarily wealthy conservatives who own and influence the media that really drive the narratives against other forms of wealth redistribution, while poorer conservatives are more in favor of social safety nets.

slibhb• 2 years ago

American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck. As often as possible, we want to think it's earned. The idea of trying to make up for some of the luck factor by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant, even if it might lead to higher quality of life for everyone involved.

The US is in the ballpark of other OECD countries in terms of social expenditure: https://www.compareyourcountry.org/social-expenditure

Aunche• 2 years ago

The US government actually spends more per capita on healthcare than the UK or Japan despite it not being universal. We're terribly inefficient with its social spending because have politics is so adversarial and nobody is interested in doing any due diligence.

underlipton7• 2 years ago

Why work your butt off for 10 years to get to a place where you can afford a nice dwelling if you can also wait 10 years, working but not pushing yourself, and someone else will pay for it for you?

Why would I have a problem with this if the "someone else" is a robot? Though I suppose, for the past 2-3 decades, it's been more like, "a worker whose productivity has been GREATLY increased by the advent if the Information Age." (I can see how the worker might be put off by that, but they also have the option of grabbing me and a few other people meeting witht he boss, and saying, "We're each going to do a small portion of my tasks, you're going to pay us the same as you used to, or nothing is going to get done at all.")

AndyMcConachie• 2 years ago

I'm so glad I left the USA and moved to The Netherlands. Public housing in NL isn't perfect, but the one thing I really really do not miss is listening to my fellow Americans share their opinions on the subject.

mlrtime7• 2 years ago

And you still get to pay US taxes assuming you are a US citizen.

whywhywhywhy• 2 years ago

American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck

Think it's more surprising how little of it is down to luck. Even working slightly harder reaps rewards quickly that outweigh the extra work.

It's most just most people are not even putting in the minimum.

bombcar19• 2 years ago

Luck controls the biggest swings in some cases, but diligent hard work covers for quite a bit of the small changes.

Some people are just really bad at diligent hard work and lack the self control needed. The question is how to handle that without causing other issues.

smeej4• 2 years ago

I think this only looks true on a local level. It's easy to see why Jimmy pulls ahead of Johnny when Jimmy's working more diligently, but they're starting from a fairly even playing field.

A lot of the big cards are just dealt to you. Your parents, your skin, your religion, your school, your intelligence, your health, the neighborhood you grow up in--these things have a huge impact on what you do or don't have to overcome once you're old enough to take responsibility for your choices, and you don't get to pick them at the start. They have an outsized impact on what you even believe to be possible, never mind what you think is normal.

vladvasiliu10• 2 years ago

And then once you have it, there's even less incentive to try to "move up" from there, because there's now a cliff in front of you. You have to make the whole jump in one go, because if you only take incremental steps, you lose eligibility for your subsidies.

I don't know about other places, but I think this is a major issue in France. Many things stop altogether if you get above a certain limit of income. So many people end up working for minimum wage, because if they got 1 € more, they start "qualifying" for more taxes, lose access to social programs, etc.

bombcar19• 2 years ago

This is much easier to deal with in "money payments" (you just make sure that every dollar extra you earn doesn't "cost" you more than fifty cents by having graduated wind down of payments) but can be much harder with things like programs that give you actual things, like housing or food.

It can still be implemented (not by saying "if you make more money, you'll only get 29 days a month of this house" but making the cash subsidy for the housing explicit and able to be wound down) but it really has to be thought through.

You really want some way for lower income people to move to middle income without having to give up their neighborhood, friends, everything. But if the neighborhood is entirely "working poor" and "filthy rich" you can't.

everforward4• 2 years ago

People also don't like it because it in effect means the government is competing against you for property using your own money.

I.e. if the government buys up 10% of the posh neighborhood to add cheap housing, the number of posh units goes down 10% and you paid for the taxes to make that happen.

So you're paying taxes to give someone else the thing you want, and make it harder for you to get that thing in the future. Then you hear about some corruption scandal where the government was overpaying...

I think American culture has a weird fetish for fairness. We'll do something that makes everyone worse off because at least it's distributed evenly. Admitting that success has a large luck component would mean admitting that the system isn't and cannot be made fair, and I just don't think that's an idea people can tolerate.

How does our justice system function if it admits that defendants in bad situations are there because they're unlucky instead of bad people? How do we justify income inequality if we admit those at the top were lucky and that it would be a different set of people in an alternate universe? Basically our whole society is built on the idea that the system is fair and everyone is where they deserve to be because of choices they've made.

bloppe• 2 years ago

Fairness is not the same thing as equality, and most people appreciate that.

tmnvix3• 2 years ago

the government is competing against you for property using your own money

Unless you somehow have an income source that doesn't rely on any taxpayer funded infrastructure whatsoever, it's a bit disingenuous to call it 'your own money'. As an example, if your city pays for a big new park on your block and this increases the value of your property, is that increase really yours?

The whole issue of taxation is so much more complicated than '100% of my income is mine and any tax is essentially theft'. Much better to argue about taxation in terms of fairness in my opinion. In terms of fairness, property owners do much better out of the whole equation than it might first seem as every public improvement amounts to a tax refund in the form of increased property value. The poor might get obvious refunds or entitlements, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are not equivalent.

In the above circumstance, the people with the most legitimate gripe are people paying a decent amount of income tax while owning no property and so missing out on both types of 'refund'.

int_19h3• 2 years ago

I think American culture has a weird fetish for fairness. We'll do something that makes everyone worse off because at least it's distributed evenly.

When you phrase it like that, it's not really an American-specific thing. I remember reading about ethological studies on very young children - not in US! - where they would be given a bunch of candy to distribute in various contrived situations. One of those was picking between something like "you get 1 candy and the other kid gets 1 candy" vs "you get 2 candies and the other kid gets 4 candies", and similar arrangements in larger groups. What they found is that there's a very strong bias towards fairness, meaning that kids were pretty consistently willing to end up with less candy themselves if that means that another kid would not get an unfair share. Which, if you think about it, is not an unreasonable trait to evolve in a social species.

lo_zamoyski• 2 years ago

I'm not sure how you connect the first paragraph with the second.

American culture doesn't like to think about how much of "success" is down to luck. [...] The idea of trying to make up for some of the luck factor by taking some from those with more and giving it to those with less is almost instinctively repugnant, even if it might lead to higher quality of life for everyone involved.

I don't find charitable giving repugnant. I donate myself, even when there is no tax benefit to be gained. I don't find conservative and prudently managed social safety nets repugnant either (by prudent, I have in mind social safety nets that are by design meant to help people get out of poverty, not become dependent on such a system by creating incentives to remain effectively poor). I also recognize that the common good does require more than just money (and I do recognize a common good, unlike weird, sociopathic hyperindividualists). And in times of crisis, I recognize that a rigid notion of private property is opposed to the common good; private property exists, after all, for the sake of the common good. If I had a warehouse of food during a famine, I would not view people taking amounts of food from that warehouse to allow them to survive as theft.

What I do find repugnant is what seems like the insinuation that my luck somehow means that others are entitled to what I have received through luck[0], and that my claim to such wealth is suspect. If I win the lottery, the notion that there is something unclean about receiving that wealth or bequeathing it to my children, because I was lucky, and others weren't, or else I'm a bad person, is preposterous. It reeks of envy. So, unless I've earned something, others can just take it? I have no right to it? But they have a right to it? Unless I've earned something, I must feel insecure about having it? No, actually. If I have received something through luck, through gift, through merit, and I have done so without criminality, it is mine.

Now, if I did win the lottery, I would certainly give to charity. And if a competent state taxed me in a reasonable way to fund programs that genuine help lift the poor out of poverty, I have no issue in principle. And I would claim, that those who have surplus wealth beyond what is needed to fully support themselves and their families do well to use that surplus to aid the poor (the poor, mind you, not those who can make it on their own). I simply reject the notion that others can or should force me to do so. And when I have the freedom to decide on my own, I have the freedom to allocate money prudently.

[0] https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1116.htm

cheriot• 2 years ago

We don't have to define basic necessities as "success". We can all have them.

itishappy3• 2 years ago

This is the main reason I'm drawn to Universal Basic Income (UBI). Give everybody a subsidy, regardless of their situation, and the cliff problem vanishes. If you never take away the subsidy, then there's always an incentive to improve.

makerdiety• 2 years ago

Diversity needs the precondition of liberal democratic welfare support? Therefore, eliminate public goods like public housing to destroy diversity. Since diversity positively correlates to large populations and the tragedy of the commons.

rayiner6• 2 years ago

I wonder how many of those poor immigrants who live in this public housing to serve wealthy Parisians would prefer to live in something like an American suburb if they could get jobs there.

retinaros5• 2 years ago

all of them

averageRoyalty• 2 years ago

Probably none. I'd much prefer to be poor in Paris than America.

https://homelessdeathscount.org/ (arrogent domain given it's a USA count) https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/dying-on-the-streets-franc...

Even adjusted for population size, we're still talking 2-3x the death rate if homeless.

Acolin notes that France has roughly as many social housing dwellings as the United States, despite having less than one-fifth the population.

https://www.sightline.org/2021/07/26/yes-other-places-do-hou...

Social spending in France is the highest in the world, which has a dramatically larger effect on poor immigrants.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/02/social-spending-highe...

In France, these immigrants woild also have access to public healthcare, meaning they'd get 70-100% back on most medical appointments and reimbursement for prescription medications. There are many other social benefits too. It's also much more likely to be closer to their country of origin than the US, in the event they want and are able to return at some point.

I'm not trying to be rude, but why do you think a poor immigrant would have it better in the US than France? I can't think of a single reason.

esbranson• 2 years ago

I'd rather be poor in Miami Beach or NYC than the EU. It has much better benefits than Romania.

Sorry I couldn't help it. Comparing an EU member state to the US is akin to comparing a US state to the EU. These are big places and Paris and even France are a very, very small part. Europe has some real, real crappy places that really, really mess up Europe's statistics. Once places like Bosnia and Ukraine get in, the stats will get even worse. I doubt Romanian and Ukrainian social spending is very high. Compare to US states and cities in you're comparing EU states and cities, and comparable ones.

freddealmeida• 2 years ago

Who is paying for all this?

sylware• 2 years ago

Singapore? 80% of public housing? true?

javier_e06• 2 years ago

Hong Kong has some is highest skyscrapers next to housing that rents cages for people to sleep in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedspace_apartment People live in the same neighborhood and there is a cruelty factor of understanding and accepting that in your city poor people live in cages. And people in the US live in tents. At least nobody profits from that.

GardenLetter27• 2 years ago

Public housing is terrible - why should the government steal my money (income tax) to pay to house criminals and drug dealers nearby which devalues my property and endangers my life and family?

We just need a true Free Market - let people build and invest how they want, where they want. And ensure that everyone has a stake in the property they own and the area they live in.

epolanski2• 2 years ago

Because as a society we progress at the pace our weakest progress.

We don't say China moved ahead because the rich got richer, but because it lifted hundred of millions from poverty.

And if anything, a poor social net tends to create more dangers, not less.

When people have no roof, no jobs, no help, they will turn into criminals. Hell if I need to eat, or worse, I need to feed my family, I could not care less about becoming a criminal too. Zero.

I've seen the dystopia of private neighborhoods with gates and security, the ghettos, the crumbling neighborhoods, endless tents anywhere you look in many major US cities.

We don't want this in Europe.

I'd rather pay more taxes that help the weakest, not just taxes to punish them and send them to jail. A society with more desperate people makes my life worse, not better just because I can find a more isolated/secure prison where I can avoid looking at them.

lotsofpulp• 2 years ago

We don't say China moved ahead because the rich got richer, but because it lifted hundred of millions from poverty.

I was under the impression the poor in China moved ahead due to working, not because the Chinese government subsidized their housing or other basics. Although, the Chinese government did subsidize their ability to find and get to work via huge infrastructure projects.

bedobi10• 2 years ago

why should the government steal my money (income tax) to pay to subsidize you driving around in and parking your private automobile, for every trip, everywhere, including in dense urban environments?

rdmreader3319• 2 years ago

I can't pass the paywall but does it mention Paris is losing people? I was living in the 15th arrondissement and this family area turned into a violent zone in a couple of years as they put public housing everywhere. Drug dealers, violence at my kid school, theft... My street became a spot for druggies and I had to pass them with my kids. 15 minutes from the Eiffel tower...

I left this city 3 years ago and found safer land. All my friends did the same. There is no sane reason to stay in an area with so much violence. Parisians will deny this but will just say "you have to avoid this and that, have a pepper spray, do not wear a skirt, do not go there at night..."

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240317093631if_/https://www.ny...

wtcactus• 2 years ago

This measure, as most welfare measures, punishes the middle class - the ones that pay, out of their own pocket the taxes that fund the welfare state.

It’s the same story all over Europe: the middle class sees close to 50% of their income taken away in taxes and contributions, and then is left paying for most of their expenses out of their own pocket.

Meanwhile rich people only pay a fraction of what they earn in taxes, and “poor” people get most stuff for “free”.

The saying is really correct: if you take half of someone’s wage to distribute for two people that didn’t do the same effort, you loose a vote, but you gain two.

JudasGoat• 2 years ago

https://archive.ph/IELmI

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

being a broke outsider in the city, it has been very difficult to exercise my rights especially in terms of housing.

from my limited experience it seems that while in richer neighbourhoods there might be some diversity, it is not the case everywhere. there has been a move to grow the city outwards and move newer social housing further out. but the historically poorer neighbourhoods more or less seem to remain in their older state.

however you rationalize it, one ends up questioning whether it is worth living in the city given the challenges in finding a place.

Paris preserves its mixed society by pouring billions into public housing

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