Paris: Still the World's Most Beautiful City? Trash Overload in Paris

[Your Old Comrade]

The famed City of Lights doesn’t shine quite so brightly these days. Locals complain of dirty streets, poorly maintained roads, scruffy street furniture, horrendous traffic jams, and growing uncertainty.

For some people, Paris will always be the most beautiful city in the world. There are plans to make the city more welcoming and pleasant to live in, by redeveloping the riverbanks, and creating new cycle paths and walking routes.

The Olympics of 2024 are not far away – so how ready is the City of Lights? To find out, we talked to both officials and ordinary Parisians. Many tourists and residents complain of a lack of cleanliness, citing overflowing trash cans, graffiti, fly-tipping, and an infestation of rats. In response, the town hall has created a service called “La Fonctionnelle” including emergency teams.

But not all of the workers are so motivated. A garbage collector tells us about the high levels of absenteeism, and various strategies that his team use to avoid work. It also takes several months for potholes to be mended by the highway maintenance teams, due to budget and staff cuts.

Several thousand people a year move out of central Paris. These are mainly families, driven out by soaring rents and family apartments being instead used as AirBnBs. Many Parisians deplore the changes in the city.

The number of bars in the 2nd arrondissement has doubled, squeezing pavement and parking spaces for residents. The noise levels make it impossible to sleep at night. We speak to André, who has soundproofed his apartment. We also speak to Loïc and Jacques who denounce the “urban walk” in the 18th arrondissement. Two years after it opened, after an eleven million euro investment, the urban orchard is abandoned, the skate-park deserted and local residents are still just as afraid to walk there in the evenings.

Beyond the picture-postcard images – is Paris still the most beautiful city in the world?

[CosmoLady]

Yeah it is sad, the city stinks of garbage, graffiti everywhere, migrants everywhere, the stench of cannabis,
stabbings, decapitations, tourists raped at knifepoint under the Eiffel Tower, just another day in Paris

[Your Old Comrade]

Yeah it is sad, the city stinks of garbage, graffiti everywhere, migrants everywhere, the stench of cannabis,
stabbings, decapitations, tourists raped at knifepoint under the Eiffel Tower, just another day in Paris

I remember that my ex, many years ago, asked me on whether we should visit Paris and I told her that the City of Light has dimmed decades ago.

[CosmoLady]

I remember that my ex, many years ago, asked me on whether we should visit Paris and I told her that the City of Light has dimmed decades ago.

And I was enjoying myself in Paris during the time of Jacques Chirac,
but then I started noticing the security situation and quality of life deteriorating gradually from Sarkozy onward.

I am 32 years old and I have noticed most Western liberal democracies' quality of life getting steadily worse.

In my entire life, I have not seen Western liberal democracies identify or solve a single major problem.

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...67#post7860267

[Your Old Comrade]

And I was enjoying myself in Paris during the time of Jacques Chirac,
but then I started noticing the security situation and quality of life deteriorating gradually from Sarkozy onward.

I am 32 years old and I have noticed most Western liberal democracies' quality of life getting steadily worse.

In my entire life, I have not seen Western liberal democracies identify or solve a single major problem.

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...67#post7860267

Same here. But the alternatives for democracy are even worse.

[CosmoLady]

Same here. But the alternatives for democracy are even worse.

Democracies are/were only a brief period in European history, they will metamorphose into something else, I am not sure what.

At best, to survive, this will be some type of unified, fortified democracy like Hungary,
that actually protects its own people.
A strong leader can be the protector and champion of the people.

And at worst:

Most democracies seem to degenerate into oligarchy;
the first-world democracies also become biomedical tyrannies and police states with occasional mob rule manipulated by elites.

The third-world democracies become unstable tribal feudal states and may devolve into failed states,
if they do not go back to being dictatorships in the first place.

Some may become third-world anarcho-tyrannies,
where certain speech or dissent or minor infractions are severely punished,
but the state cannot control crime, drug trafficking, or violence, or fulfill many basic government functions.
So there are elements of tyranny and anarchy, the worst of both worlds.

As Western democracies import more third-worlders, the society will transition from first-world to third-world.

[CosmoLady]

Maybe one day, the Algerian gangs will battle the Syrian gangs in the ruins of Paris.

[Your Old Comrade]

Democracies are/were only a brief period in European history, they will metamorphose into something else, I am not sure what.

At best, to survive, this will be some type of unified, fortified democracy like Hungary.

And at worst:

Most democracies seem to degenerate into oligarchy;
the first-world democracies also become biomedical tyrannies and police states with occasional mob rule manipulated by elites.

The third-world democracies become unstable tribal feudal states and may devolve into failed states,
if they do not go back to being dictatorships in the first place.

Some may become third-world anarcho-tyrannies,
where certain speech or dissent or minor infractions are severely punished,
but the state cannot control crime, drug trafficking, or violence, or fulfill many basic government functions.
So there are elements of tyranny and anarchy, the worst of both worlds.

As Western democracies import more third-worlders, the society will transition from first-world to third-world.

I wouldn't call Hungary a democracy. What we do need, though, is to break up or nationalise those banks and corporations that now influence and corrupt politics. So, if there is anything we can learn from the former pseudo- democracies, is to enshrine the above mentioned system into the constitution and have a national alliance of block parties where all regular forms of democracy are possible, but within the framework of socialism and patriottism: in other words, it becomes the law of the land that the etnicity and culture are untouchable, so by extension, mass immigration and the attacks on the culture, as well as enforced Americanisation are against the constitution and will be treated as attack on the nation and its socialist and democratic order.

[HectorOfTroy]

Same here. But the alternatives for democracy are even worse.

Democracies get undermined because scumbag rats/media try to brainwash people with all this degeneracy. However, the several decades spent and fact that they're trying so hard to topple our nations by trying to get to the people through media, should say something as to the security of democracy, if this was an dictatorship, they would've toppled it only in a matter of years.

[Your Old Comrade]

Democracies get undermined because scumbag rats/media try to brainwash people with all this degeneracy. However, the several decades spent and fact that they're trying so hard to topple our nations by trying to get to the people through media, should say something as to the security of democracy, if this was an dictatorship, they would've toppled it only in a matter of years.

That's because corporate media is beholden to corporate interests. The problem, as always, is crony capitalism.