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Replace the parking lots with housing? Would drop costs, and allow more people to live within the city, decreasing the need for cars.

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This assumes a significant number of those spaces are contiguous such that they're eligible for being replaced by housing. Moreover, Paris doesn't build tall buildings, so the housing isn't very dense (compared to a typical US city). I'm very skeptical this would create enough housing to lower property values.

EDIT: Oof, that's quite an error on my part. I was absent-mindedly conflating "downtown areas" with the whole city. My bad. Never the less, I'm skeptical that this change will amount to much in terms of lower property values, but I'd be happy for someone to articulate why my skepticism is misplaced.

> housing isn't very dense (compared to a typical US city)

Maybe we are thinking of different things but I see the average US city as suburban with 4 people per quarter acre lot. Paris is 10-100x more dense than that. That's why public transit is far more effective there.

Yeah, that parenthetical was an absent-minded mistake on my part. I added an 'EDIT' to my original post.

No.

> The French capital has 56,000 people per square mile while NYC, the most densely settled U.S. metropolis, has only 27,000 people per square mile

Manhattan and a few select sections are denser but US cities are sprawling.

I wonder if central park and the other parks brings that down compared to Paris

Paris has parks too.

edit: the Bois de Vincenne is roughly three times the size of Central Park (10km^2 vs. 3.4km^2).

  NYC, the most densely settled U.S. metropolis, has only 27,000 people per square mile

Manhattan is the relevant comparison, and it has almost 71,000 per square mile counting Central Park.

Paris is denser than virtually every American city, and it's not even close. I honestly can't tell if the comment is supposed to be taken seriously. Density does not equal high rises.

Barcelona's 'superblock' structure boasts the highest density in the world (exceeding the world's densest city overall, Manila, and looks like this:

https://www.eltis.org/sites/default/files/news/shutterstock_...

A good chunk of Parisian suburbs is already among the most densely populated areas in the world:

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

Yeah, I was mistakenly comparing US downtown areas with Paris downtown areas. Mea culpa.

I do imagine that a high rise is going to be more dense than a Parisian 5-story. I understand that Parisian apartments are smaller and they aren't going to have parking or on-site greenspace like a US high rise, but I would be surprised if they are still less dense. Of course, that doesn't validate my original claim that Paris is sparser than US cities.

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