The two-bedroom penthouse comes with sweeping views of the Eiffel Tower and just about every other monument across the Paris skyline. The rent, at 600 euros a month, is a steal.
Marine Vallery-Radot, 51, the apartment’s tenant, said she cried when she got the call last summer that hers was among 253 lower-income families chosen for a spot in the l’Îlot Saint-Germain, a new public-housing complex a short walk from the Musée d’Orsay, the National Assembly and Napoleon’s tomb.
“We were very lucky to get this place,” said Ms. Vallery-Radot, a single mother who lives here with her 12-year-old son, as she gazed out of bedroom windows overlooking the Latin Quarter. “This is what I see when I wake up.”
Sure, to some extent. But most cities have the ability to grow upwards and increase density though, which can relieve some of that pressure. Paris cannot. And they usually don’t do the rent control tactics and simply price out anyone who isn’t top 20%, leaving the service workers with ever-lengthening commutes to stay in housing thry can actually afford.
Skyscrapers don’t increase density as much as you might think because they’re often required to get skinnier as they get taller in order to not block too much sunlight etc., while mid-rise buildings can take up more of the lot. They also tend to have more overhead in terms of mechanical spaces. They also cost more per unit area to build, which means the rents have to be higher.
I’m not saying that skyscrapers don’t provide more density than mid-rise (they do), I’m just saying that the returns – especially in terms of housing affordability, not just quantity – diminish at a quicker rate than people might realize.