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The idea of an American calling Paris dirty or "seedy" is quite laughable. In 2012, France (yes, the whole country) recorded 665 homicides. Yes, a country of 65 million people had fewer homicides than Chicago and Baltimore combined. And what Parisians consider "ghetto" is a joke compared to Southeast, West Baltimore, parts of P.G. County, North Philly, Brownsville-ENY, etc. Even the "rough" areas have pretty clean streets and buildings.
Take Balzac, for example, a street that's constantly getting shout outs by Booba and other French rappers (think MLK in other cities). I remember visiting here for the first time and thinking, "This is it?"
The interesting thing about the Paris "ghettos" is that they're racially diverse. You see a decent mixture of Arabs, blacks from Africa and the Caribbean (others are native French), and working class whites. This is a stark contrast to the DC ghetto, which is nearly all black.
Where is all of this trash and graffiti in Paris? I'm not talking about Drancy or Aubervilliers? If you're going to call out these sections of L'ÃŽle-de-France, then you should call out the crappy parts of the DC metro region for which Paris has no match.
Where does this ugly auto-centric crap exist in Paris?
DC still has rundown, ghettto, dirty and country-looking parts of the city. Paris has none of that.
Have you ever taken Eurostar into Gare du Nord and been greeted with graffiti lining everything? Ever taken the Paris Metro with walls tagged like nobody's business? Ever seen water flush down the sides of the road carrying piles of strewn cigarettes? I've seen that in Paris, even in its nicest parts. I didn't say that DC didn't have bad areas as well, not was safety implicated at all. Paris has such a vandalism problem that Velib was almost shut down due to and still has continuing problems with equipment damage and theft. And I've never seen more touts and beggars in a developed city that I have in Paris...the scale is ridiculous (probably only rivalled by SF).
And yes, I know about the banlieues. I wasn't referring to them at all.
Have you ever taken Eurostar into Gare du Nord and been greeted with graffiti lining everything?
I actually lived in France for an entire year. I've never taken Eurostar into Gare du Nord, but I did take RER to Chatelet once a week. Never saw much graffiti in Paris. And this is the late 90s I'm talking about. At any rate, how does graffiti in subway tunnels (much of which has been erased) amount to a dirty, seedy city? Again, that's like someone visiting Columbia Heights in 1999 and then talking about what a dump it is today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoking66
Ever taken the Paris Metro with walls tagged like nobody's business?
You were last in Paris when?
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoking66
Ever seen water flush down the sides of the road carrying piles of strewn cigarettes? I've seen that in Paris, even in its nicest parts.
That's done intentionally on a daily basis to remove debris. I mean, Paris really set the standard for cleanliness among major cities, and actually implemented a sidewalk cleaning program way before DC had one (the number of sanitation workers you see walking around the city puts any BID in DC or the whole country to shame). You would see the same exact thing if you flushed water down 7th Street, 18th Street, M Street or U Street. But you're not going to see that because DC uses streetsweepers instead of water to remove debris.
And you still haven't identified specific streets or neighborhoods in Paris that you think are dirty or trashy. Where is this grime "in its nicest parts?" On the Champs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoking66
And I've never seen more touts and beggars in a developed city that I have in Paris...the scale is ridiculous (probably only rivalled by SF).
Well, we were clearly in two different cities. DC still has a homelessness problem though it's nowhere near as bad as it was in the 90s (just go down by Judiciary Square to see what I'm talking about). But overall, a city with a crack epidemic, astronomical murder rate, and mass poverty is going to have more beggars, crackheads and junkies than a city that never had any of that.
As you can see from this video, the streets of the Latin Quarter are exceptionally clean, particularly given the high pedestrian traffic, which exceeds anything in DC.
I've never been to Paris (it's definitely one of the cities I want to visit at some point in my life). Based on the photos and videos that have been provided, Paris reminds me of San Francisco more so. Maybe I shouldn't be posting due to my lack of experience anywhere overseas (much less, Paris), but I just had to comment on the striking resemblance to S.F. that jumped at me after I watched those videos.
Do people in Paris still pee on the walls of buildings?
Do people in DC kill people everywhere they go?
Paris, France:
Population: 2,234,105
Homicides (2011): 42
Washington, DC:
Population: 632,323
Homicides (2011): 108
Clearly, Washington, DC is crime ridden and not fit for tourists. And the city has an HIV rate comparable to sub-Saharan African countries. And the Mayor smoked crack
I've never been to Paris (it's definitely one of the cities I want to visit at some point in my life). Based on the photos and videos that have been provided, Paris reminds me of San Francisco more so. Maybe I shouldn't be posting due to my lack of experience anywhere overseas (much less, Paris), but I just had to comment on the striking resemblance to S.F. that jumped at me after I watched those videos.
Interesting. I would have never thought SF. SF is probably a bit more vertical than any other city that's not NYC, but it's only vertical over a very small footprint. Paris is 40 sq. miles (more if you count surrounding areas) of 6-8 story buildings. The streets are far narrower and it's much more mixed-use. It's not like the U.S. where you'll have commercial corridors with exclusively residential streets in between. Pretty much every building has some form of retail at the ground level. It's a very different and more walkable type of density. The closest thing to Paris on this side of the pond is Montreal (and that's still not a good comparison).
Paris has the Champs-Elysees arguably the most beautiful street in the world. NYC has Manhatten and Central Park.
DC has monuments and everyone favourite temple: Freemasons. By the way where did the freemasons get millions to buy the land and build a roman stone temple in DC. HA
Also, Paris and NYC do not have the orange line. One of the most expensive and useless modes of transportation for actually getting somewhere on time in the wold.
Last edited by mcleanexec; 08-15-2013 at 03:24 PM..
Reason: Kick a Liberal, you will be happy
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