5 ms·
That's not accurate. The trade off is always change the character with more density or change the character by changing the economic makeup of the people that
by snapplebobapple 3y ago
That's not accurate. The trade off is always change the character with more density or change the character by changing the economic makeup of the people that live there and it shouldn't even be a question which to choose. The choice is very obvious because the outcome of preserving character at the expense of accommodating the needs of the people living there is pretty much always having the place turn into a rich guy playground (with or without lots of homeless people depending on how authoritarian the place is) and the poors to middle classes that used to live there being displaced to much poorer commuter quality of life situations or into outright homelessness. The only people that blocking progress does anything for is the entrenched owners of the real estate, everyone else gets screwed.
- rglullis 3y ago> changing the economic makeup of the people that live there I really don't get this argument, even less so with the hyper-connected world we live today. The world's population has grown ~6x since the Eiffel Tower was built. Why do we need to cram these people into the already big cities, instead of developing the smaller towns? It's not like land is a problem, and it's not like we still depend on having our settlements on an area with immediate access to a port or river. In North America specifically, it would be a lot easier to change the zoning laws and regulations in the suburbs and increase their absurdly low density and inefficient land use, than it would be to constantly trying to put everyone and their dog in the already dense cities. The best way to avoid turning Paris into a "rich guy playground" is by creating a supply of other playgrounds to keep up with the increased demand, not by destroying the existing playgrounds in the first place.