Paris can teach London how to swap skyscrapers for homes

[M II A II R II K]

Paris can teach London how to swap skyscrapers for homes


1 July 2015

By Feargus O'Sullivan

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...triangle-tower

Is Paris trying to copy London or something? There’s new evidence that the French capital has caught London’s skyscraper bug, at least. Yesterday, the Conseil de Paris approved the first tall tower to be built within the city since 1973, ending the longstanding habit of banishing them to the outlying Défense district in order to keep inner Paris’s late-19th-century appearance intact.

- Meanwhile, in the city’s heart, a controversial plan was voted through this June for a (lower, but scarcely less striking) revamp of the historic Samaritaine department store, with a new translucent facade that resembles a “giant shower curtain”. While these projects are mostly on the fringes of the inner city, they still suggest that Paris’ days as a bastion of architectural conservation and micromanaged preservation might be over. --- Those days won’t be mourned by everyone. For decades, there has been talk of Paris as a ville musée, an architectural showcase whose 19th-century appearance has been fixed as immutably as an insect trapped in amber: intricate, gorgeous – and dead.

- The more business-friendly sections of the French press, meanwhile have occasionally looked wistfully across to London, with its forest of new towers, its open doors to big money – even its rather less demure nightlife – as an example of a city truly embracing the 21st century. --- Is this really fair? Certainly the immaculate preservation of inner Paris seems to have gone hand in hand with an indifference to anything further out. Looking at the noxious sprawl around the city’s péripherique ring road gives the impression of a city that has turned itself smugly inward. The truth is that, following the unpopularity of the early 1970s Tour Montparnasse, Paris hasn’t yet built towers in its centre partly because it doesn’t really need them.

- Built consistently up to heights of four to six storeys, inner Paris is already one of the most densely populated spots in the western world. The city proper has a density of over 21,500 people per square kilometre within its narrow limits, while the suburbs of Levallois-Perret, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais and Montrouge are denser still. Nowhere in any UK city comes remotely near this. Britain’s closest equivalent is the London borough of Islington, which comes in at a mere 13,886 residents per square kilometre.

- Paris is currently trying to up this residential density yet further, while largely sticking within its current height limits. The city has partnered with France’s national railways SNCF and the city transport body RATP to build 2,000 homes (50% for social rent) on unused railway land within Paris proper, part of a projected (if ambitious) plan for 10,000 new flats every year. --- By 2020, the city also plans to have converted 250,000 square metres of office space into homes, much of it in under-used Haussmann-era buildings originally built as residences. Add to all this plans to keep the city affordable by introducing rent controls next month and the bold move of allowing skyscrapers within Paris comes to look like a bit of a sideshow.

- Seen in this light, London’s current yen for building office and luxury housing towers isn’t a sign of a city leading the way towards true modernity. London’s tower frenzy is essentially a way to counteract years of building low. It’s a pathetically misguided attempt at that, presented as essential for a growing city but actually doing almost nothing to ease the city’s acute housing shortage for anyone but the rich. Admittedly, a few shiny glass insertions into the Paris skyline may make the city look a little different – and more London-like – when seen from high up. But it’s London that needs to get real and catch up with Paris, not the other way round.

.....

[Crawford]

Paris is a global treasure, and no skyscrapers should be allowed within the city proper. They already have plenty of density, and can accommodate growth within the existing context.

I wouldn't even allow anything above 6-7 floors except in the fringe parts of the city where you already have lots of postwar highrises.

And yeah, if anyone is interpreting the London highrise boom as a urban capacity expansion, then they're mistaken. Obviously highrises aren't going to dramatically expand capacity; you would basically have to demolish London and rebuild anew if you wanted a high density city.

[The North One]

I agree, Paris should stay intact. But I still think there's room for new development without exactly having to be high-rises.

[Minato Ku]

Tour Triangle will not be the first skyscraper to be built within the city limits since 1973 as there is already a skyscraper under construction in the 17th arrondissement.
The new Courthouse of Paris is 525 ft tall.

[10023]

Most London skyscrapers are being built on either disused former industrial land (e.g., the Docklands, the Greenwich Peninsula development, or around Battersea power station) or on the site of existing postwar structures. They are not demolishing high quality pre-war architecture for skyscrapers. The Luftwaffe did that part.

There's also a lot of replacing older Class B office towers with newer, larger, better ones.

For example, the Shard was actually built on the site of a demolished 25-story highrise called Southwark Towers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwark_Towers

And the Walkie Talkie (20 Fenchurch Street) was built on the site of this building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fen...rch_Street.JPG

[ardecila]

Maybe the new policies in Paris are keeping the city affordable. But it sounds like typical left-wing housing policy: massive subsidies for those who fall below a certain threshold, and skyrocketing prices for those just above it.

London's skyscrapers are pitched as a "free market" solution to the problem, but they are insignificant compared to the total housing supply in London and so they will do virtually nothing to reduce prices. Truly upping the supply would require rebuilding large parts of London wholesale with mid-rises, which would never be politically feasible.

I'm not sure it's possible to have free-market affordable housing in a city in a democratic society, unless that city is seeing little or no growth (ala Detroit) or has tons of truly underused land (ala Chicago) thanks to deindustrialization or abandonment. Otherwise, the existing crowd of urban dwellers will fight additional housing tooth-and-nail, and democracy gives them the power to succeed. Japan is another exception, but Japanese people have a communal mentality that is vastly different from Western societies, and they are willing to live in very small spaces when land is scarce/costly.

[The North One]

Aren't these tall luxury towers made for mostly international buyers in the first place? If they do little to solve any real problems that the city has and people don't even want them in their city centers then I don't see a point of forcibly shoving these buildings down our throats.

The government has really no choice but to intervene if they want an affordable city. If whatever they're doing is working I don't see a problem with it.

[10023]

The solution to housing affordability is transit. So yes, government has a big role to play, but not in the way many people here are thinking. What matters is commuting time, not distance, so making more (cheaper) neighborhoods with good access to jobs helps affordability.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Japan is another exception, but Japanese people have a communal mentality that is vastly different from Western societies, and they are willing to live in very small spaces when land is scarce/costly.

And is Japan really an exception? Tokyo is still painfully expensive (though less so than in the past), even in the face of economic stagnation and population decline. Massive towers have filled the skyline in the last few decades, yet the city remains unaffordable and only slightly cheaper than NYC/LDN/HK and the like.

Are Japan's secondary centers affordable?

[Innsertnamehere]

highrise housing stock can help affordability, but it needs to go up on a massive scale. Toronto has seen apartment prices generally rise with inflation over the last 5 years due to the 10,000 new apartment units that come online every year in the city.

building a skyscraper here or there isn't going to do a whole lot. It will help a small bit, but not really noticeably so. As for how super luxury towers help the market being affordable, the super luxury buyers move into the towers, the regular luxury buyers move into their old homes, the regular buyers move into the luxury buyers old homes, so to speak. More units on the market means less competition to get a limited amount of units, and lower prices to live there. But 1 tower won't even scratch the demand to live in London or Paris, 500 new units in a new building for a market that has hundreds of thousands of units and demand for hundreds of thousands more will not do much.

Detroit and Chicago are cheap to live in because there is actually relatively little demand to live there. Housing stock is routinely abandoned and the stuff that isn't is sold off on the cheap. Falling population figures will do that.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And is Japan really an exception? Tokyo is still painfully expensive (though less so than in the past), even in the face of economic stagnation and population decline. Massive towers have filled the skyline in the last few decades, yet the city remains unaffordable and only slightly cheaper than NYC/LDN/HK and the like.

Are Japan's secondary centers affordable?

As the link points out, Japanese cities do not contend with historic preservation, and there is very little local control over zoning and land use. As in the US, housing production is seen as a key economic driver, but unlike the US, the Japanese national government has control over where and how many housing units can be produced in the private market, and they are less sensitive to local concerns.

[nito]

I don’t believe Paris is ‘copying’ London by building skyscrapers; it is merely a reflection of demand within Paris. It is also clearly not feasible or preferable for London to replicate the densities of Paris. It would entail demolishing vast amounts of property, the creation of vast new boulevards, a completely new rail system that mimics the stopping distances of the Paris Metro and the eradication of hundreds of green spaces that make London... London!

London is quite apparently experiencing a skyscraper boom (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1790096), and it is indeed crazy to think that prior to 2000 there were only two towers above 150m+, but I don’t think anyone seriously believes that skyscrapers are the only source of new residential construction.

[mousquet]

^ Agreed. It's completely pointless to compare Paris to London.

I think a main interest in residential skyscrapers for now, in the short or medium run is to make the high-end niche of the market more diverse, which could slightly decrease real estate rates in quite a few districts of the central urban area. It's always much better, far more effective to rely on the free market development, diversity and competition than on their regulated and subsidized social housing to put prices under a downward pressure. Everyone knows it, that's just basic economics. Those to turn down that market strategy in Paris simply have no interest in a price decrease, so they're blocking any significant try to relieve the local market.

Another essential interest is to enhance building technologies and standards. High-end skyscrapers would pull them up, while social housing frequently tends to be as cheap as it can be, thus eventually mediocre in every respect.

Finally, more business opportunities in other large cities of the country would obviously help Paris and above all entire France in doing much better. We lack serious challengers at national level. Lyon's temper for instance is yet bad enough by nature, but everything was done in Paris to prevent any province from growing bigger.

Generally speaking, the problem in France is simply that the overall national market has been over regulated, on purpose -- nothing is done by accident here -- not so much to serve the interests of the people as a whole, but more those of an already established and scared social class desperately trying to protect their feelings of privilege, while the world proves them weak and wrong anyhow.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Generally speaking, the problem in France is simply that the overall national market has been over regulated, on purpose -- nothing is done by accident here -- not so much to serve the interests of the people as a whole, but more those of an already established and scared social class desperately trying to protect their feelings of privilege, while the world proves them weak and wrong anyhow.

I don't know much about the overall French market, but it's fantastic that Paris is heavily regulated in terms of zoning. It's a huge economic positive for the city.

Paris has the best streetscape of any major city on earth. That's in large part why it's so fabled and popular. The previously allowed highrises are horrible blights, and harmed the city's urbanity. There's plenty of room for highrises in the Paris region, but not in the core.

Paris needs to be Paris. It's crazy to try and turn Paris into Frankfurt or Dallas. No more Montparnasse or Concorde Hotel-type developments.

[mousquet]

^ We sure could make a fine high-rise cluster of Montparnasse without demolishing anything pretty.

There is balance between fierce NIMBYism and uncontrolled awkward development.

[mhays]

As a tourist I like Paris to be a museum of what I think it should be, but there's no question that that attitude (by the French) is a huge reason for its costliness.

I'm a liberal on many issues (transit, environment, etc.) but the moderates have it right on development. The pure left-wing response is simple-minded at best...rent some units at low cost so you get low-cost units. It ignores the importance of supply, and doesn't mind screwing the entire renting public who depends on building owners competing for renters vs. the other way around. Trusting the market takes more nuanced thinking and trust in a sequence of events...new units get built, and even if they're expensive they're freeing up other units, and existing units will gradually get cheaper as they age and fall out of fashion.

Some of the left-wing policies could easily have been written by building owners. If you own an apartment building, you don't want a lot of other buildings to compete with. Cut off supply and your rents can skyrocket. Many politicians, including ones here in Seattle, don't know they're being suckered by these guys as they put up barriers and fees for development. Only hundreds of thousands of renters will suffer for it...the residents of every existing and new rental building. I own so I guess I'll win too. This must be a big dynamic in Paris and London, among people who know what they're doing (making money for themselves) and don't know what they're doing (not grasping the connection between scarcity and bidding wars).

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by mhays

As a tourist I like Paris to be a museum of what I think it should be.

But the needs of the population and tourists are often contradictory.
What is good for the tourism is not necessarily good for the good development of the city and its prosperity.

If we want to have a functionning busy and living Paris we can not afford to turn the center into a museum.
Tourism will never bring enough money to justify to abandon the city center to this activity.
That would be absolutely destructive to the functioning of the city.

[The North One]

Paris doesn't have to be a museum in order to preserve it's historical core and history.

[Minato Ku]

If the center is not sufficient to meet requirements, it could turn into a museum.

Paris need a mix of modernity and history in its centre.
In exemple if 25-30% of the buildings are replaced, it would still remain 70% its ancient buildings (the facade at least).

This will not radically change Paris but this will increase and modernize the stock of office, residential, retail and etc.

Projects like the Samaritaine in Paris or the Hotel Dieu in Lyon are in tune with what I imagine.

[Crawford]

To me, those renovations are inappropriate. Looks like something you would see in Rotterdam or Hamburg.