It really depends on the city/quarter where you live. I live in the center of Barcelona and had no problems with two small kids at all. Supermarkets, real farmer's markets, hospitals, pharmacies, schools, etc are all within 10min walking distance. I work from home, but I could walk to the office it I wanted to. I don't have to leave the city at all.
Eventually I gave in and bought a car, not because it was necessary but rather to leave the city on weekends and get closer to nature.
Yeah, if you live in the most expensive part of the town, which is often the epicenter, it may be ok. However, not everyone can afford this, or justify the expense, especially since you are pitted against childless couples that don't have to support children financially. Also, the presence of bikes on the sidewalk makes it hostile for vulnerable pedestrians, and generally turn a pleasant experience (walking in a city) into a stressful one.
Yes, gentrification is a thing around here too, but I also lived in the outskirts of the city and you don't need a car there either. They also have all the essentials. The fancy restaurants and theaters are 30min metro/bus away, but otherwise it is fine too. A car is a luxury in those quarters too.
Completely agree that the presence of bikes and scooters on the sidewalk is annoying and dangerous. The city changed the rules a few months ago and now there is a 500€ fine if you use them on the sidewalk. That fixed the problem. They have to use the street or one of the many bike lanes.
No idea how it is in Paris, but there are places where living happily in a city without owning a car is perfectly possible, even if you have small kids.
If bikes (not cars) are making a city "hostile to vulnerable pedestrians", that seems like a very good problem to have compared to the average car-centric city.
Bikes and cars. But cars have their own space (the road) and rules (red lights, crosswalks...), whereas cyclists ride at full speed on the pedestrian's space (the sidewalk).
It’s false that cyclists routinely ride on the sidewalk in Paris, let alone at full speed. They ride on the road (car and bus lanes) and in bike lanes. It’s true, however, that on some very popular bike routes (rue de Rivoli, boulevard Saint-Michel/Sébastopol), there are enough cyclists that don’t stop at lights that pedestrians can’t easily safely cross. This is a solvable issue that’s independent from the modal share or infrastructure.
The argument that cyclists (implied: all cyclists) ride at full speed on pavement at all times is akin to arguing that cars (implied: all cars) go over the speed limit at all times. It’s daft at best, and utterly outlandish.
You should stop and have coffee in a street shared only by pedestrians and cyclists, and observe the behaviour of cyclists. I have observed it to be mostly slow, controlled, courteous and respectful of pedestrians.
I picked up my son today at the kindergarten, and we walked for 25 minutes back home. Here in Riga most cyclists go on the sidewalks, I'd say that 2/3 of them don't respect a minimum 1.5 meter safety distance, and about the same amount go as fast as they can. I stopped and scolded a food courrier (who is incentivized to go as fast as he can) who was slaloming between pedestrians as if it was a game.
No, I don't feel safe at all, and my son can't walk freely either. In Paris it's the same (my wife, who was pregnant then, got hit at a crosswalk by a cyclist who seemed to believe that red lights were for cars only). Even Le Monde published an piece about it!
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/our-times/article/2024/11/17/anti-...
I live in the 19th district of Paris—probably the cheapest district within city bounds, with the 20th, and not in the center—and I have no issue living with an under 2-year-old. Hell I even decide to go all the way to the 14th for his pediatrician appointments, on the subway. I can walk to something like 5 supermarkets and bodega-like markets, take the subway to a bunch more including specialized, I can walk to see a generalist, we walk to his daycare, etc. all < 10 minutes. I can’t imagine what you can’t do honestly.
Childless couples aren't competing for 4 bedroom apartments. The problem is that cities forbid construction of those.
Neither do families, as that's out of reach financially. In a dense city centre a three bedroom apartment is already a sign of wealth.
Everyone is competing for space. I don't see how cities prevent building larger apartments. European cities are mostly built out anyway, and the tendency is rather more to split large apartments to cater to the childless crowd.
Cities prevent larger apartments through onerous zoning codes. It's so expensive to build because of the permits and the risk that only a narrow type of structure has a chance of profit.
> mostly built out
Look at rent in Asia. They actually build towers over there and they build large apartments for families as well as small apartments for couples. There's enough building that the housing market is diverse.
Architectural preservation. Which may not be all a negative thing, but central Paris is low-rise compared to Manhattan, Berlin or even central London.
Central Paris is denser than Manhattan. At some point the bottleneck is not the amount of people you can cram into a m2 of land, but the underlying infrastructures.
> Eventually I gave in and bought a car, not because it was necessary but rather to leave the city on weekends and get closer to nature.
How much does parking for that cost the rest of the week? How much is your car payment + insurance + fuel? Presumably you did the math and it's cheaper to have bought one, including a nominal amount for your time to rent one on Friday and return it Sunday night. So I'm just curious.