forgotmypwagain

I’d recommend going with a good freelancer (if you can manage him/her yourself) or a normal agency (if you want someone to manage the designer for you). In any case I would think more about the deliverables you need instead of the amount of hours / iterations you need in the beginning. When you see that you have enough work to hire a designer full time I’d go that route then, as it is (usually) still cheaper than such an offer (IMHO).

Stay away from sites like upwork.com if possible (the quality is not good in my experience) and prefer people in your own city if possible, as being able to meet face to face is a great advantage in my opinion and helps to build trust. Do not hire the cheapest designer available but also don’t overpay, ask for cost estimates and references. Make sure you’ll be able to work with the design they do for you and be sure to make it clear who is responsible for implementing it or in what format the results will be provided (e.g. Sketch or Illustrator).

Sure not all fermentation produces alcohol, but many fermenting organisms do.

And of course it’s observational bias, I said that I personally can’t imagine how the culture of these countries would be without alcohol, though I’m sure people would get along just fine (we don’t need alcohol to survive after all). Just saying that not everything needs to be banned, otherwise we might as well ban sugar and salt as they probably kill just as many (or more) people as alcohol.

Fermentation of grains and fruit is a millennia-old way of preserving food that would otherwise spoil, so it isn’t without merit. The problem today is that alcohol is available so easily and so cheaply in many countries. In Germany, (some) beer costs less than regular milk per liter and hard liquor is available very cheaply as well.

I have seen people that destroyed themselves using alcohol, but most people can deal with it just fine. That’s also the problem when trying to regulate it, as it is not just a drug but a cultural thing in many countries. I have a hard time imagining Germany without its beer culture or France or Italy without their wine culture.

Not sure why this is voted down as Paris intramuros is quite walkable as you said. With a velib (Paris municipal rental bike) you can probably go from South to North in 30-40 minutes.

As you say there is quite a lot of architectural diversity already (I e.g. loved strolling through the Quartier Latin and discovering small side streets and different architectural patterns in buildings and neighborhoods), they just had more consistent city planning as compared to other cities (IMHO) so the differences are not as stark as e.g. in most US cities.

There are many high rises outside of the boulevard peripherique (the ring motorway separating inner and outer Paris), it’s just that most tourists never go there.

Also, many people live in the suburbs that are served by the RER lines, and these have a large degree of variety in both density and style. I suggest visiting e.g. Antony or Gif Sur Yvette (and The Valley of Chevreuse in general) to get an entirely different feeling of the larger Paris area.

Personally I don’t know what the city planners could reasonably do to increase the density of the city without destroying its character, as Paris intra muros is really fully developed already without virtually any empty space whatsoever (contrary to e.g Berlin where even today there’s tons of empty space even in the very center).

I’m not sure if increasing the density is always a good idea as well, as it doesn’t suffice to add more housing but you will have to scale all other required services as well (schools, supermarkets etc.) so growing the city outwards might be better (as area grows quadratically with radius).

BTW the uniformity of the buildings in Paris also stems from a regulation that requires most buildings to have black metal window sills in front of every window.