The nightmare for Paris is becoming a museum. The city (where I have lived since 2002) has always aimed to be cutting-edge. The “capital of the 19th century” remains one of five generally recognised front-rank cities, says Richard Longworth’s new book, On Global Cities. Nonetheless, Paris needs to shape up. Freshly back from the Chicago Forum on Global Cities, I came up with four things the place has to fix to remain front-rank. Happily, it is working on all four already.
1. End segregation. Paris’s scar is the Périphérique ring road. Inaugurated in 1973, the Périph cuts off the perfect city centre with its 2.5 million inhabitants from the mostly imperfect suburbs. The Paris-suburban divide reminds me a tiny bit of the Johannesburg-Soweto divide that I witnessed on visits to my South African grandparents during apartheid.
A first step to end this is the “Grand Paris” plan, meant to improve transport and create nice new housing in the suburbs. The next step — backed by several architects — should be to build over the Périphérique (while probably leaving it intact). Among other things, that would give Paris the office space it lacks.