George-Eugène Haussmann, the man who created Paris

Let's be really clear: Haussmann built an autocrat's city. He was the architect of Louis-Napoleon, nephew of the former French emperor, and the city was built during the so-called second empire. That is, it does not reflect democratic values. How does it not reflect them? Well, the broad avenues radiating from star-like intersections are meant to favor the artillery if rebels ever try to build a barricade. This structure was later used to shape Washington DC. These considerations were important because of the Paris Commune of the 1870s, where the people of Paris rebelled against what they felt was bourgeois oppression. Except for a few periods after WWI and WWII, when artists like Picasso or Hemingway briefly frequented a poor and beautiful city, Paris has been a bourgeois stronghold ever since. This has huge cultural ramifications, many of them negative, for life in the city, since a premium is put on proper behavior and, above all, silence. Haussmann's ravages pushed the working class out into the suburbs -- what people now refer to the Red Belt -- depriving Paris of much of its vibrant street life. There were huge tradeoffs in the makeover, so let's not unduly idolize him.

During the revolution, no one had an accurate map of Paris.

This is what made the barricade such an effective tool. People could throw up a few barricades and quite effectively defend a neighbourhood.

When the army showed up they had to channel through narrow unfamiliar streets.

If the tide turned against the people, they often managed to escape through a little known back alley.

The "Grande Boulevards" may look majestic, but they are also military roads. They make it easier to move troops within the city.

For people interested in what Paris looked like before it became the Paris we know, I strongly recommend to have a look at Vergue (http://vergue.com), and especially at the work of photographer Charles Marville (http://vergue.com/category/Auteurs/Charles-Marville) who was commissioned to take pictures of streets that were going to be demolished or completely renovated.

Vergue is doing a fantastic job of not only renovating these photographs, but also provides a crazy amount of details for each of them (What were these posters about? What is that tool we see next to the entrance of that café ? etc.)… in French only, sorry :)

The article is poorly researched. Napoleon III's motivation was preventing insurrections, not improving health of Parisians or the smell of the streets. Haussman targeted areas favorable to guerrilla action from rooftops, to barricades, and to escape, which often happened to be the oldest in Paris. The new avenues down which a cannon could be fired from one of the city to the other during an insurrection, in a nice bit of unintended consequence, later made the job of the invading Prussians easier. Haussman's plans were opposed by a number of cultural figures, including Baudelaire, who believed the loss of a great number of medieval buildings was unconscionable.

It's easy to forget how a "historic place" is actually not that old. Cities are constantly changing, we'd do well to not let preservationist instincts always trump new development and changes for a more useful city.

SF in particular should be more creative about finding ways to preserve neighborhood feel without making a suicide pact with the effective 3-stories-or-less limit in most areas.

I would recommend that 4 episodes tv program from the French-German channel Arte, if you can speak either language: http://boutique.arte.tv/f10552-paris_berlin_destins_croises_... (this is the link for the french version).

This is so true. What a visionary. Paris would be a totally different beast if it was not for him. This makes you regret that there were no such visionary (on a similar scale) in the twentieth century.

Haussmannize San Francisco!

Atlanta needs one of those.