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Or the Eixample neighborhood in Barcelona. Population density 92000/sq mi (36,000/km²).

A photo: http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zHv1hczQcD4/UdgqTs1G3cI/AAAAAAAAqCI/le...

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

What a great Eixample

Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco, yet has three times the population. As you said, Paris is a very livable city. Yet, a lot of people would describe San Francisco as "full". It is nowhere near "full" if the city updates its infrastructure to accomodate the incoming population, and it puts the housing crisis into perspective: there is room for a lot of housing in San Francisco.

I don't live in SF and haven't for a long time, but this seems essentially correct to me. My experience of SF is of a lot of small, low-slung buildings; the Mission seems like it consists almost entirely of wood-frame 2-flats.

> Paris is slightly smaller in area than San Francisco

Its either much smaller (if you count the city proper: less than 1/4 the size of the City and County of San Francisco; given your 3:1 population ratio, this seems most likely to be the comparison you were making) or much bigger (if you count the continuous stretch of urbanized land area within any given radius of the city center) or slightly bigger (if you count by a larger region -- the Ile-de-France is slightly larger than the 9-county Bay Area and has similar population density.)

I can't find any kind of like-for-like comparison by which Paris is "slightly smaller" than SF.

> It is nowhere near "full" if the city updates its infrastructure to accomodate the incoming population

Which isn't an argument that SF isn't "full" (at its current limit of support), but that it wouldn't be full in a hypothetical situation which doesn't exist and which doesn't show any prospects of existing, since the money to change would have to come from somewhere, and even those proposing more aggressive development don't usually propose concrete major infrastructure improvements to support the increased population (and even when they wave their hands in the direction of the idea of such improvements, don't propose a concrete funding mechanisms.)

Also, what cities like DC have happen is an artificial density. In the desirable parts of DC, no space is wasted. People don't live in big units. A lot of the housing is tightly packed low rises and tiny rowhouse-which are often chopped up into several condos.

It feels more cramped in DC than when I lived in a 45 story highrise building in Chicago, even though the DC neighborhoods have fewer people per sqft.

Building up relieves prices and more efficiently uses the land. It also lets young, childless people live together leaving the less dense areas for families who may appreciate more space.

Instead the DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) are running minorities out of their neighborhoods by bidding up the price of the land. And they end up in neighbourhoods that aren't even dense enough to support local bars and restaurants.

DC should be zoning Shaw, Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, Admo, etc for 60 story high rises.

    Instead the DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) are running 
    minorities out of their neighborhoods by bidding up the 
    price of the land.

Uhh, that's pretty much the plan. The landowners in places like SF and DC want to watch their holdings achieve lower Manhattan valuations. The history of NYC through the 90s proved the way you do that is demographic transformation.

Paris, as they say, is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Come to think of it, I'm not even that fond of visiting.

I am very grateful that my parents brought me up in a decent-size house with a nice biggish backyard. I can't imagine growing up in an apartment. Particularly in today's world where kids don't play in the park unsupervised. It must be even worse for the parents, who can't say "go play outside!" whenever the kids get rowdy and annoying. I don't think indoor living is good for kids.

For people without children apartments are fine of course, which is why I think the ideal city consists of a combination of a higher-density centre with surrounding low density areas.

People need to quit it with the desire to make everyone else live like a single twenty-something professional.

I think it's precisely the opposite. In a high-density, pedestrian-friendly apartment environment, parents can actually say "go play outside", with kids free to roam around the neighborhood or larger city by public transit, without worrying too much about being run over by cars.

In a typical American suburban environment, "play outside" means play alone in the confines of the backyard, or be shuttled in cars by parents to "play dates", with most roads lacking even sidewalks.

Play where? Even if you're happy letting your kid play unsupervised in the park across the street in a high-density area, in the Paris style cities we're talking about the nearest park is still usually blocks away. You gonna send a five year old strolling through the city alone?

Even then, I live in a high-density area with a park across the street and I'd be hesitant to let kids below ten at least go there unsupervised, if I had them. Whereas if I had a backyard I could tell them hey, go nuts, and peek out the window every fifteen minutes.

Of course I'm not defending streets without sidewalks. I'm defending the sort of place I grew up, which combines quarter-acre blocks and trees and parks with having shops and schools and libraries within walking distance.

Maybe not a five year old, but certainly an 8-9 year old.

I grew up in apartment blocks very similar to the image that was linked elsewhere in this thread: http://lh5.ggpht.com/-zHv1hczQcD4/UdgqTs1G3cI/AAAAAAAAqCI/le...

These were mid-rise buildings connecting together to form protective courtyards, filled with gathering places, playgrounds and mini-parks, inaccessible to cars, where 5-year olds could play, and 10 year olds had the whole city accessible to them thanks to good public transit.

>> I'm defending the sort of place I grew up, which combines quarter-acre blocks and trees and parks with having shops and schools and libraries within walking distance.

That sounds like a pretty rare place though. Walking distance to schools and libraries tells me either pedestrian-friendly high density, or a very small town with not many job options. If it's neither, I'd love to check it out. Where was that, if you don't mind?

Sounds like Minneapolis.

similar experience here. I agree that it's very nice, although we all probably have biases towards the way we grew up :)

I did play outside in that kind of environment because mid-rise houses had internal courtyards big enough to accommodate all the kids. Parents were ok to see us playing there, they were not ok to see us on the street with cars and people passing by.

> People need to quit it with the desire to make everyone else live like a single twenty-something professional.

On the other hand, if all the twenty-something professionals were allowed to live in the city center of their dreams, with Paris-like population density, and hipster cafes and restaurants in each city block, there would be more room for the suburban sprawl for the families to be closer to the city center.

When the "suburban party" denies the "city hipsters" the dense, walkable neighborhoods, they also force the hipsters to compete for the same suburban estate, which drives prices up and commutes longer, and everyone is worse off as a result.

People who want X for themselves, would actually benefit and get their X cheaper and better, if they allowed other people who want Y get and build their Y, instead of forcing everyone to compete in the market for X.

I bit unintuitive, I understand.

I don't think the "suburban party" is denying any such thing. In cities like San Francisco people who paid a million plus for their townhouse don't want new highrises blocking their view or their light. People who live in suburbs don't care one way or the other.

What's your opinion of how Dallas turned out? There's a whacking great set of huge rings around the city center that are extremely suburban, but a lot of dense "file cabinets for hipsters" closer to downtown, and a fairly functional light rail system.

> Particularly in today's world where kids don't play in the park unsupervised.

That's an American thing. Here kids take the metro and go to school by themselves from age 8, at the most.

> closely built, dual use 7-story buildings with offices & shops & restaurants on the ground floor

This also describes much of Berlin. The effect is a lively city that rarely feels overly crowded.

Hong Kong at least happened much because of Georgist taxation of land rents. When people can commute ten more miles and divide the cost of living there by a factor of ten, they will. So don't hold your breath on "getting rid of cars" any time soon without some incentive for capturing land rents. For now, we use cars for that.

And it's interesting that we still talk about "shops & restaurants". Other than craft/fine dining, those can eventually be highly virtualized in terms of logistics and depend much less on place.

I have lived in Paris, and it was the most crowded place I have been. The price of housing has gone through the roof and the municipality has passed at least two regulations in the past few years - the first one putting bounds on the rents of apartments up to 13m^2 and the other one banning the rental of apartments below 9m^2!

I live in Milan now and the density seems close to optimal for my taste

er, what is exactly a 9m^2 apartment?!