6 ms·

It's not entirely true. If you walk the inner-city neighbourhoods, you will rarely encounter buildings with more than 10 stories [1]. Clearly there are options

It's not entirely true. If you walk the inner-city neighbourhoods, you will rarely encounter buildings with more than 10 stories [1]. Clearly there are options, which aren't on the table because of preservationism and zoning. [1] https://www.google.de/maps/@48.8575448,2.2997841,3a,75y,329.28h,106.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sM5DHWdkG-zQMycGSa9K87Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@48.8575448,2.2997841,3a,75y,329....

alkonaut 8y ago
There just isn't that much undeveloped land in the inner cities, and no one wants to tear down a 100-year old 5-storey building to make room for a 10 or 20 or 50 storey building. If an empty construction spot is found for some reason, or the odd house is torn down, then I agree with planners: don't make 1 building in 100 tall. That's just an eyesore. Heterogeneous vs homogeneous I can agree is debatable, but almost-homogenenous with a single eyesore is the worse of both.
- baud147258 8y ago
  Also there are height limitation for buildings in Paris, which are in parts of Paris around 8-10 floors.
etiennemarcel 8y ago
And yet most arrondissements have densities similar or greater than Manhattan (28k / km2): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arrondissements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arron...
- woodpanel 8y ago
  Size of Paris: 104km^2 [1] Size of Manhattan: 59km^2 [2] Density Paris: 21,000/km^2 [1] Density Manhattan: 28,154/km^2 [2] Comparing arrondissements with a larger area like Manhattan is not good. If you compare Manhattan's wards with Paris's arrondissements you get a clearer picture: 11th arrondissement: 41.500/km^2 [3] Upper Westsides 25th district: 92.400/km^2 [4] Looks like the visual comparison of stories works out quite well with regards to density [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arrondissements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arron... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1KH824f7Bya0UVvEzTMcBxJ_Qds8KW2E4&ll=40.725554769468175%2C-73.96030341838764&z=12 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1KH824f7Bya0UVv...
  - realusername 8y ago
    If you build taller buildings, you will need to have wider streets, thus resulting in the same density, it won't solve anything.
    - woodpanel 8y ago
      is it anecdotal or is it provable? There are dozens of open wide Rues, Avenues and Boulevards in Paris that don't have any dense housing compared to Manhattan or Hong Kong etc.
      - realusername 8y ago
        Yeah you can maybe put only 5 or 10 more skyscrapers by destroying the biggest empty spaces (there's not that many of them), what would be the point of that? It's not a dozen of skyscrapers which will solve the housing crisis.
        woodpanel 8y ago
        No you would scrap some buildings instead. But thats of course not doable because preservationism declares every of those 6-8 story buildings in Paris, that are of crumbling conditions a historical landmark if necessary.
      - grumpydba 8y ago
        Yeah but we tend to think that it's a pretty shitty idea to replace those nifty Carved stone buildings with cheap and shallow stained glass/concrete/steel ones.
    - fiblye 8y ago
      What? I've never seen this in practice. Hong Kong is incredibly dense and full of high rise buildings (Kowloon has 110,000 people/square mile) and streets aren't exactly wide. Seoul packs in 42,000 people per square mile without many significantly wide streets. Tokyo streets are often only suitable for one way traffic.
Thlom 8y ago
But taller buildings equals wider streets to such a degree that the density you win by building high mostly gets eaten up by the lost real estate used for wider streets.
- tormeh 8y ago
  Why do you need wider streets? Moving people is what the metro is for.
  - ckarmann 8y ago
    Except if you plan to build an underground city, people still have to walk from/to the metro station to/from wherever they live or work. And people also still strangely favor having a bit of sunlight. As a French living now in Canada, Paris streets are narrow in general, and especially the sidewalks are ridiculous, most of the space is for cars. One of the first thing to do would be to reclaim that street space for pedestrians and cyclists, which is an ongoing, slow and painful battle.
  - st26 8y ago
    Sunlight. People go crazy if they live in darkness everyday. I'm pretty sure this was discovered & studied in the history of American east coast cities.
    - woodpanel 8y ago
      Then why not raze Paris' buildings down to one story? (The difference in sunlight exposure for pedestrians between an 8-story building and a 16-story building is not remotely as large than between an 8- and a 2-story building) Because sunlight non-exposure is one of the pinnacles of unfounded, futile arguments against density.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > Why do you need wider streets? For public health reasons, enable emergency and disaster response, contain potential propagation of collapses, enable large volumes of people to evacuate in a timely manner, etc. Europe has lived with narrow streets for some centuries and learned to avoid that mistake. It's a shame that somr people have forgot or never learned those lessons.

alkonaut 8y ago

There just isn't that much undeveloped land in the inner cities, and no one wants to tear down a 100-year old 5-storey building to make room for a 10 or 20 or 50 storey building. If an empty construction spot is found for some reason, or the odd house is torn down, then I agree with planners: don't make 1 building in 100 tall. That's just an eyesore. Heterogeneous vs homogeneous I can agree is debatable, but almost-homogenenous with a single eyesore is the worse of both.

baud147258 8y ago
Also there are height limitation for buildings in Paris, which are in parts of Paris around 8-10 floors.

etiennemarcel 8y ago

And yet most arrondissements have densities similar or greater than Manhattan (28k / km2): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arrondissements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arron...

woodpanel 8y ago
Size of Paris: 104km^2 [1] Size of Manhattan: 59km^2 [2] Density Paris: 21,000/km^2 [1] Density Manhattan: 28,154/km^2 [2] Comparing arrondissements with a larger area like Manhattan is not good. If you compare Manhattan's wards with Paris's arrondissements you get a clearer picture: 11th arrondissement: 41.500/km^2 [3] Upper Westsides 25th district: 92.400/km^2 [4] Looks like the visual comparison of stories works out quite well with regards to density [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arrondissements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris#Arron... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1KH824f7Bya0UVvEzTMcBxJ_Qds8KW2E4&ll=40.725554769468175%2C-73.96030341838764&z=12 https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1KH824f7Bya0UVv...
- realusername 8y ago
  If you build taller buildings, you will need to have wider streets, thus resulting in the same density, it won't solve anything.
  - woodpanel 8y ago
    is it anecdotal or is it provable? There are dozens of open wide Rues, Avenues and Boulevards in Paris that don't have any dense housing compared to Manhattan or Hong Kong etc.
    - realusername 8y ago
      Yeah you can maybe put only 5 or 10 more skyscrapers by destroying the biggest empty spaces (there's not that many of them), what would be the point of that? It's not a dozen of skyscrapers which will solve the housing crisis.
      - woodpanel 8y ago
        No you would scrap some buildings instead. But thats of course not doable because preservationism declares every of those 6-8 story buildings in Paris, that are of crumbling conditions a historical landmark if necessary.
    - grumpydba 8y ago
      Yeah but we tend to think that it's a pretty shitty idea to replace those nifty Carved stone buildings with cheap and shallow stained glass/concrete/steel ones.
  - fiblye 8y ago
    What? I've never seen this in practice. Hong Kong is incredibly dense and full of high rise buildings (Kowloon has 110,000 people/square mile) and streets aren't exactly wide. Seoul packs in 42,000 people per square mile without many significantly wide streets. Tokyo streets are often only suitable for one way traffic.

Thlom 8y ago

But taller buildings equals wider streets to such a degree that the density you win by building high mostly gets eaten up by the lost real estate used for wider streets.

tormeh 8y ago
Why do you need wider streets? Moving people is what the metro is for.
- ckarmann 8y ago
  Except if you plan to build an underground city, people still have to walk from/to the metro station to/from wherever they live or work. And people also still strangely favor having a bit of sunlight. As a French living now in Canada, Paris streets are narrow in general, and especially the sidewalks are ridiculous, most of the space is for cars. One of the first thing to do would be to reclaim that street space for pedestrians and cyclists, which is an ongoing, slow and painful battle.
- st26 8y ago
  Sunlight. People go crazy if they live in darkness everyday. I'm pretty sure this was discovered & studied in the history of American east coast cities.
  - woodpanel 8y ago
    Then why not raze Paris' buildings down to one story? (The difference in sunlight exposure for pedestrians between an 8-story building and a 16-story building is not remotely as large than between an 8- and a 2-story building) Because sunlight non-exposure is one of the pinnacles of unfounded, futile arguments against density.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > Why do you need wider streets? For public health reasons, enable emergency and disaster response, contain potential propagation of collapses, enable large volumes of people to evacuate in a timely manner, etc. Europe has lived with narrow streets for some centuries and learned to avoid that mistake. It's a shame that somr people have forgot or never learned those lessons.