User:ThePromenader/Paris 2014

Cityscape

Panorama of Paris as seen from the Eiffel Tower as a 270-degree view. The river flows from right to left, from the north-east to the south-west.

Urbanism

See also: Haussmann's renovation of Paris and List of tallest buildings and structures in the Paris region

Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro (1897)

Most French rulers since the Middle ages made a point of leaving their mark on a city that, contrary to many other of the world's capitals, has never been destroyed by catastrophy or war. In modernising its infrastruction through the centuries, Paris has preserved even its earliest history in its street map.

Before the Middle ages, the city was composed around several islands and sandbanks in a bend of the Seine. Three remain today: the île Saint-Louis, the île de la Cité and the île aux Cygnes. Modern Paris owes much to its late 19th century Second Empire remodelling by the Baron Haussmann: many of modern Paris' busiest streets, avenues and boulevards today are a result of that city renovation. Paris also owes its style to its aligned streetfronts, building-unique upper-level stone ornamentation, aligned top-floor balconies, and its tree-lined boulevards. The high residential population of its city centre makes it much different from most other western global cities.

Paris' urbanism laws have been under strict control since the early 17th century, particularly where streetfront alignment, building height and building distribution is concerned. In recent developments, a 1974-2010 building height limitation of 37 metres (121 ft) was raised to 50 m (160 ft) in central areas and 180 metres (590 ft) in some of Paris' peripheral quarters, yet for some of Paris' more central quarters, even older building-height laws still remain in effect. The 210 metres (690 ft) Montparnasse tower was both Paris and France's tallest building until 1973, but this record has been held by the La Defense quarter tour First tower in Courbevoie since its 2011 construction. Skyscrapers are appearing in many of Paris' closest suburbs, particularly in La Defense where there are projects to build towers between 265 metres (869 ft) and 323 metres (1,060 ft) high.

Churches are the oldest intact buildings in the city, and show high Gothic architecture at its best—Notre Dame cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle are two of the most striking buildings in the city. The latter half of the 19th-century was an era of architectural inspiration, with buildings such as the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, built between 1875 and 1919 in a neo-Byzantine design. Paris' most famous architectural piece, the Eiffel Tower, was built as a temporary exhibit for the 1889 World Fair and remains an enduring symbol of the capital with its iconic structure and position, towering over much of the city.

Housing

Social housing in Paris as of 2012

Paris is the 8th most expensive city in the world for luxury housing: €12,105 per square metre (€1,124.6/sq ft) in 2007 (with London at the most expensive with €36,800 per square metre (€3,420/sq ft)). According to a 2012 study for the La Tribune newspaper, the most expensive street is the quai des Orfèvres in Paris' 6th, with an average price of €20,665 per square metre (€1,919.8/sq ft), against €3,900 per square metre (€360/sq ft) for the 18th arrondissement rue Pajol.

The total number of residences in the City of Paris in 2011 was 1,356,074, up from a former high of 1,334,815 in 2006. Among these, 1,165,541 (85,9%) were main residences, 91,835 (6,8%) were secondary residences, and the remaining 7.3% were empty (down from 9,2% in 2006).

Paris' urban tissue began to fill and overflow its 1860 limits from around the 1920's, and because of its dense construction, it has seen few modern constructions since then. Sixty-two percent of its buildings date from 1949 and before, 20% were built between 1949 and 1974, and only 18% of the buildings remaining were built after that date. Two-thirds of Paris' 1.3 million residences are studio and two-room apartments. Paris per-residence inhabitants average 1.9 residents, a number that has remained constant since the 1980's, but it is much less than the Île-de-France 2.33 person-per-residence average.

Social housing represents a little more than 17% of Paris' total residences, but these are rather unevenly distributed throughout the capital: the vast majority of these are concentrated in a crescent formed by Paris' south-western to northern periphery arrondissements.

Infrastructure

Paris streets

Paris had 6088 public and private streets as of 1997. It widest is the 120 metres (390 ft) wide 16th arrondissement avenue Foch, and its narrowest is the 1.80 metres (5 ft 11 in)-wide 5th arrondissement rue du Chat-qui-Pêche. Stretching over its 6th and 15th arrondissements, with its 4.36 kilometres (2.71 mi), the rue de Vaugirard is technically Paris' longest street, but its Avenue Daumesnil, stretching across and beyond its 12th arrondissement into its Bois de Vincennes (after cutting into Saint-Mandé), is a total of 6.27 kilometres (3.90 mi) long. Paris' shortest street is the 5.75 metres (18.9 ft) 2nd arrondissement rue des Degrés, and its shortest avenue is its 16th arrondissement 14 metres (46 ft)-long avenue Georges-Risler. Paris' steepest street, with its 17% rise, is the 20th arrondissement rue Gasnier-Guy.

Urban Geography

Urban sociology

The continued rise of Paris' property values explains the gradual replacement of its lower-to-middle classes by a new class of more fortuned inhabitants, a gentrification trend shared by many of the world's other global cities like London or New York. This urban evolution gave the popular (yet largely undocumented) term "bobos" ("bourgeois-bohème") a negative ring when it became common for Parisians to it to describe the richer newcomers, and it was concretised in the social mutation of until-recently working-class quarters like the 10th arrondissement or Paris closest suburban communes like Montreuil.

In a list of France's cities with a population over 20,000, Paris ranks 12th its per-capita number of inhabitants paying the Solidarity tax on wealth, or 34.5 taxed households for every 1,000 inhabitants, and Paris' 16th arrondissement leads with its 17,356 inhabitants paying this tax. Seventy-three thousand three hundred and sixty-two taxed households declared a net worth of €1,961,667 in 2006. With an average €27,400 per consumer household in 2001, Parisian homes are the most well-off in France. France's next-richest departments, the Hauts-de-Seine, Yvelines, Essonne and the Val-de-Marne, are Paris' closest neighbours, and show the concentration of high-qualification professions in the Île-de-France.

But if the above makes Paris seem a "bourgeois" city, its social makeup is actually quite varied. According to the purchasing power parity index, the vast majority of individual Parisian incomes are much below the Paris average, as most of its wealth is held by its top few percent. The overall Parisian cost of living, especially in housing, is particularly high, and certain standard commodities are much more expensive in Paris than in the rest of France.

The traditional Parisian social divide is between the wealthy western quarters and those in its north and east; this social makeup extends into its nearest suburbs. In the early 2000s, 40% of Paris' lowest income households were in the 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements. 32.6% of Parisian families born in countries outside the European Union live below the poverty level. A few quarters, like the Goutte d'Or, accumulate all the social ills: it has the highest rate of academic failure, highest unemployment and worst school health record.

Paris and its suburbs

Aside from the 20th century addition of the Bois de Boulogne, Bois de Vincennes and Paris heliport, Paris' administrative limits have remained unchanged since 1860. The destruction of the capital's obsolete military wall in 1920 inspired visions of a "Greater Paris", but political focus turned to its parent departments and region instead.

The Seine département had been governing Paris and its suburbs since its creation in 1790, but the rising suburban population had made it difficult to govern as a unique entity. This problem was 'resolved' when its parent "districte de la Région Parisienne" (Paris region) was reorganised into several new departments from 1968: Paris became a department in itself, and the administration of its suburbs was divided between the three departments surrounding it. The Paris region was renamed "Île-de-France" in 1977, but the "Paris region" name is still commonly used today.

Median income in Paris and its nearest departments (suburbs).

Paris' disconnect with its suburbs, its lack of suburban transportation in particular, became all too apparent with the Paris agglomeration's growth. Paul Delouvrier promised to resolve the Paris-suburbs mésentente when he became head of the Paris region in 1961: two of his most ambitious projects for the Region were the construction of five suburban villes nouvelles ("new cities") and the RER commuter train network. Many other suburban residential districts (grands ensembles) were built between the 1960s and 1970s to provide a low-cost solution for a rapidly expanding population: these districts were socially mixed at first, but few residents actually owned their homes (the growing economy made these accessible to the middle classes only from the 1970s). Their poor construction quality and their haphazard insertion into existing urban growth contributed to their desertion by those able to move elsewhere and their repopulation by those with more limited possibilities.

These areas, "sensitive quarters", are in northern and eastern Paris, namely around its Goutte d'Or and Belleville neighbourhoods. To the north of the city they are grouped mainly in the Seine-Saint-Denis department, and to a lesser extreme to the east in the Val-d'Oise department. Other difficult areas are located in the Seine valley, in Évry et Corbeil-Essonnes (Essonne), in Mureaux, Mantes-la-Jolie (Yvelines), and scattered among social housing districts created by Delouvrier's 1961 "ville nouvelle" political initiative.

The Paris agglomeration's urban sociology is basically that of 19th century Paris: its fortuned classes are situated in its west and and south-west, and its middle-to-lower classes are in its north and east. The remaining areas are mostly middle-class citizenry with islands of fortuned populations due to reasons of historical importance, namely Saint-Maur-des-Fossés to the east and Enghien-les-Bains to the north of Paris.

Demography

Paris' 1999 urban growth (''unité urbaine'') and commuter belt area (''couronne''), together describing a statistical ''aire urbaine'' zone of influence (metropolitan area).

Main article: Demographics of Paris

Paris' density is one of the highest of any city in the developed world. The city population was 2,249,975 in January of 2011, and its metropolitan area population was 12,292,895 the same year. Like many other global cities, Parisian population main indicators are a high average income, relatively young median age, high proportion of international migrants and high economic inequalities.

Population evolution

Paris' population reached its highest to date shortly after World War I with nearly 3 million inhabitants, then decreased for the rest of the 20th century, with its sharpest decline between the 1960s and 1970s when it dropped from 2.8 to 2.2 million. It began to rise again with an increase of 125,000 inhabitants between 1999 and 2011 despite persistent negative net migration and a fertility rate well below 2, and continues to rise through the early 21st century. Much of this population growth is due to Paris' high proportion of people in the high-fecundity 18-40 age bracket.

Paris' suburban population, on the other hand, has been steadily increasing since the 1870's, and gained almost a million inhabitants between 1999 and 2011. The Paris region's 2012 fertility rate is above 2 children per woman.

Paris' population density, excluding the outlying woodland parks of Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes, was 25,864/km² (66,990/sq mi) at the 2011 census, comparable to some Asian megapolises and the New York City's Manhattan island. Its overall population density was 21,347/km² (55,290/sq mi), making it the fifth-most-densely populated commune in France after its direct-neigbour Levallois-Perret, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Vincennes, Saint-Mandé, and Montrouge communes. Paris' most sparsely populated quarters are the central-to-western office and administrative districts, and its densest populations are in its north and east: in 2011, the 11th arrondissement had a density of 42,138/km² (109,140/sq mi), and some of its eastern quarters had densities close to 100,000/km² (260,000/sq mi).

Migration

The Paris region is one of the most multi-cultural in Europe: at the 2011 census, 23.1% of its total population was born outside of Metropolitan France, continuing an upward trend from 22.2% in 2006 and 19.7% in 1999.

About half of the Paris region population was born elsewhere. About one third of recent foreign arrivals to Metropolitan France settle in the Paris Region, and about a third of these settle in Paris itself. Twenty percent of Parisians are first-generation immigrants, and 40% of Parisian children have at least one immigrant parent. Recent foreign immigrants tend to be more diverse in terms of qualification: many are totally unqualified for any trade, while many have tertiary education.

Although the international immigration rate is positive, population influx from the rest of France is negative. The trends are heavily age-related: most new arrivals to the city are in the 18-30 age bracket, while many retirees leave for the southern and western regions of France.

Public Services

Police & Firefighting

The city of Paris has no police or firefighting force of its own: Under the orders of France's Minister of the Interior as a division of the National Police, these are managed by the Préfécture de Police de Paris whose jurisdiction covers Paris and its surrounding Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne departments, with some limited responsibilities extending to the rest of Paris' Île-de-France region. The prefecture of Police's duties include: security, sometimes in collaboration with the French army; identity, passports, residence permits and driver's licenses; traffic control and vehicle registration; environment and public hygiene.

Although it is governed by the Prefecture of Police, the Paris fire brigade is a division of the French Army's Engineering division. Its jurisdiction is the Prefecture de Police's, but extends to (sometimes distant) military and rocket test sites. Their responsibilities include: Firefighting, automobile accidents, first-call ambulance, persons in difficulty and animal rescue. They parade in full military attire every Bastille day, and their 'Bal des Pompiers' (Fireman's ball) the evening before is a popular event in Paris.

The Paris city hall does have a brigade of traffic wardens and parking controllers.