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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I can’t agree, sorry. I’m not sure if you’ve lived in Paris or not, but these “it’s a tourist city” comments almost always come from people that haven’t lived there. There are dozens of incredible neighborhoods in Paris that have little-to-no tourist presence. It’s akin to saying NYC is a tourist city because Times Square is a mess.

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Unfortunately, the rules meant to preserve the Haussmanian parts beloved by tourists are applied uniformly throughout the city, even in those neighborhoods without tourists which you mention.

There were deviations from the rules throughout the ages, especially on the left bank with the newer, taller towers (Place d'Italie, Montparnasse, Berges de Seine). But these deviations were always one off, pushed through by an ambitious leader that burned off a lot of political capital.

To build taller buildings, you would need much wider streets than what you have now, unless you want half of the city to be in a permanent shadow. This would not solve the housing issue. The density of Paris is close to the maximum possible already.

What's the point of building taller if you just increase the street width so total livable area per ground area is the same? That's nonsensical. Of course people will have to live with shadow. It's the only way to increase density (unless you want people to live in basements).

I don't know if you have been to Paris but the streets are VERY small, if you would build skyscraper, it would not be livable at all. Additionally, you need extra land for the foundation of the skyscraper (very very difficult to get in a crowded city like Paris. The point of the skyscraper is that it's cheaper for the company building it, it only makes sense in that aspect.

Guess you haven't been to Hong Kong. The street there are very small and yet there are 30 story buildings all over

https://www.google.com/maps/@22.2816017,114.156159,3a,75y,31...

Eh, no. Skyscrapers are not cheap. The cheapest thing you can build is sprawling low-rise.

Some streets in Paris are narrow, others aren't. Streets with two-way road traffic are wide enough.

I don’t think any city does this. Humans need sunlight.

(OP is not talking about shadow on one side of the road. They mean perma shadow the whole day long.)

From what I remember, Rio de Janeiro has something similar to this. Huge buildings were built basically right up to the beach so you can be 1-2 blocks away from Copacabana and not really know

There is a lot of light in rio; I've been. They do have a city by the beach, but there is plenty of light in the city. (Shade too in a lot of areas, on one side of the street. Both light and shade are important)

> There is a lot of light in rio;

Rio de Janeiro is located at latitude 22.9 South while Paris is located at 48.8 North. The solar exposure of those cities throughout the year is very different.

I'm not sure you followed. I meant the light makes it to the street. It is not bloxked by tall buildings.

The original post was about making taller buildings in paris without wider streets. That would lead to permanent canyons.

What's interesting about your examples (Place d'Italie, Montparnasse, Berges de Seine) is that these neighborhoods are considered as the ugliest and seen as mistakes from the 1960/70s. They were part of projects to rebuild the whole city, along with highways that would cut through Paris. I'm pretty sure everybody today is happy those plans were cancelled.

It's no wonder we're kind of vaccinated against towers... I could add to the list: place des fêtes, Olympiades, les Orgues de Flandres...

One deviation that comes to mind and smack in the center of town would be Beaubourg (Centre Pompidou[1]), which is a very massive, very modernist building, surrounded by some of the oldest parts of the city.

The canopy at Les Halles also pretty much puts a stop to the rumour that new, massive constructions are not possible in Paris, let alone in the center of Paris.

Granted, context certainly matters and Beaubourg was, charitably put, rather controversial when it was under construction, but it's absolutely not a given that no renewal is possible.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Georges_Pompidou [2] https://www.citylab.com/design/2015/05/paris-the-canopy-fix/...

The Beaubourg is a museum though, which nowadays are allowed to look like a pretentious eyesores that clash with the surrounding landscape as some form of statement. A better comparision would be the construction of new property that is purely residential or commerical

I really regret Paris's urbanistic conservatism and lack of possibilities for experimentation. Some recently developed areas are promising. I really enjoy walking in the "ZAC Rive gauche", the neighborhood around the Bibliothèque de France which is still in the process of being built. Take a walk starting at the Gare d'Austerlitz and going eastward following the tracks, youl'll see an unusual face of modern Paris. Unlike e.g. Front de Seine in the 15th arrondissement, I have the feeling that this area may succeed and age well. (Incidentally, this is where that startup thingy, Station F, is located, and new streets are named after Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace!)

ZAC rive gauche, Batignolles, Chapelle International, Bercy-Charenton, Rosa Parks... That's quite a lot of room for experimentation and new neighborhoods.

Are you talking about Paris propre or "les banlieux"? I can agree if you extend Paris to the "banlieux" that there is definitively good voisinage but not for Paris propre. Unless you are willing to pay top dollars to stay in les Champs-Elysses. (which I don't find that good either).

Belville, Bastille, and most of the 13e are all within the périphérique and are all great places to live and have very little overt tourism.

But what are the prices for rent/purchase? I can see it has less metro stations but still well connected.

It’s Paris, so of course it’s not going to be cheap. IIRC in Belville my studio was about 1,000€ per month, which compared to virtually any western megacity (London, NYC, SF, etc.) is a great deal. Of course, the place was tiny, but that’s Paris in general.

Inner Paris is 20 "arrondissements". Tourists are far less visible as soon as you're going to outer arrondissements, I.e. 13th, 14th, 18th, 19th and 20th (except for Père Lachaise cemetery)

Keep in mind that Paris, without near suburbs ("proche banlieue") is only 105 km² and as written, has been mostly rebuild by Haussmann (following Napoleon III orders) in the late 18XX, when I.e. London is something like 1500 km² ... so comparison may be difficult

Yes, I've lived in Paris for 3 years and it's the worst city I've ever lived in.

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