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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

Progress is not all-encompassing; it is entirely possible to claim that 21st-century medicine is preferable to 19th-century medicine while simultaneously preferring 19th-century architecture, art, or other aspects of society. Paris today may be cleaner and safer than it's ever been, but it's also far less exciting or intellectually interesting than it was in its heyday.

The prevalence of this view in the tech community is especially ironic considering that San Francisco was a far nicer city to live in 50-60 years ago (in general, of course - not for every segment of the population.)

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Knowing Paris as it is now and comparing to the photographs in the article I am happy that cleanup was performed. The old architecture was maybe interesting to some extent, but very close to a huge slum.

Note that you can also clean things up without tearing it down entirely. Many cities have retained historical centers in that style without keeping the "slum" bits, and it does makes for more interesting walking around than huge boulevards and avenues.

There's an architectural movement to come back to these more human-sized city designs too: smaller streets, more mixed use, less emphasis on large (and motorised) transportations, incorporation of structural shading and breeze-shaping, ...

See Strasbourg for an example of that. Center was left alone and 19th century building were built in a brand new neighboorhood.

see brussels for a counter-example. tore down everything, and became of laughing stock for urbanists, and a sad place to live in for the rest of us.

It works for small towns, not capital cities with multi-million inhabitants. Even with the (fabulous) dense underground network you need larger boulevards and parks, not 3 meter wide streets everywhere. I am not a fan of Champs Elysee (there are so many better places), but it gives some air to the city. I think Paris 200 years ago was claustrophobic and a maze.

Still great to see some remains of the older Paris here and there, such as le Marais.

Maybe. But had those buildings survived they would now be attractive, clean, and very expensive.

From the perspective of today the problem was that the families living in the small apartments was way too big and did not pay enough rent to maintain the buildings. They just did not have enough rich single professionals willing to pay chic apartments and studios back then. Or student with rich parents seeking a studio downtown.

The 2-300 year old buildings would be easier to raze and rebuild than to put electricity and plumbing in it, improve resistance to earthquakes, make it safe to live in case of fire or other events that requires evacuation. They were not safe on modern standards.

Intellectually interesting is not an objective thing to pursue. I believe if you look closely all modern day architecture is an intellectual marvel. Architects of today have an attention to detail that you wouldn't find in the olden days. As for SF, I would never choose to live there. A wooden old looking house for a very very high rent ? I don't see any data to support living there.

>50-60 years ago

Rent wasn't high back then.

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