Paris Is Hell

This piece from John Elledge does a pretty good job getting across what I have often tried to communicate on this shitty blog: You don't have to have midtown Manhattan skyscrapers to have the kind of population density that makes for a good city. Not everybody wants to live in a city! Cool. But even city dwellers often don't get that city doesn't mean "the place where the skyscrapers are." Paris is basically 6 story buildings everywhere. Philly isn't quite dense enough in a lot of places. Too many 2 and 3 story rowhouses and the population often isn't quite high enough to support local commercial corridors. That doesn't mean we should tear down all those blocks and replace them, but a few more 6 story buildings in appropriate places (often prevented by zoning laws) would probably be beneficial. That cool coffee shop can't stay in business unless there's enough foot traffic.