# Paris' New Urban Plan



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Sarkozy seeks new urban plan for greater Paris *










PARIS, Sept 17 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, not normally seen as a patron of the arts, called on Monday for new ideas to develop Paris over the coming decades and pledged to encourage "bold" thinking by architects. 

"The question for us is not to think about the next six months but the next century," Sarkozy said at a ceremony to open a new architectural heritage centre in Paris. 

The new museum complex, completed after years of wrangling, will "be the occasion for putting architecture back at the heart of our political choices," Sarkozy said. 

He outlined no specific plans to rival former President Francois Mitterrand's "Grands Travaux" such as the National Library or the redeveloped Louvre museum, which gave a new face to the French capital in the 1980s. 

But he said it was not enough simply to maintain existing architectural treasures. 

"Architecture bears witness to a shared past but at the same time, it is a projection towards the future," he said. "Architectural policy has to combine heritage and creation." 

"I commit myself fully to this mission, to give back the possibility of boldness to architecture," he said. 

Sarkozy's remarks were in line with a tradition of French presidents like Mitterrand and Georges Pompidou leaving their mark on the capital. 

But he may also have had an eye on the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, one of the rising leaders of the opposition Socialists, who has built a base with drives to improve life in the capital, most recently with a successful city bike scheme. 

Sarkozy said eight to 10 architectural agencies, both French and international, could be commissioned to assess the needs of the greater Paris region "for the next 20, 30, 40 years." 

STRICT PLANNING LAWS 

Strict planning laws restricting skyscrapers in Paris have helped preserve the city's distinctively harmonious appearance. But they have led some to say it risks becoming a museum piece compared with more dynamic capitals like London and Berlin. 

"I think there are certainly some taboos no one dared talk about or touch, for example big-scale projects or skyscrapers," Swiss architect Jacques Herzog told France Inter radio. 

But Herzog, whose buildings include Tate Modern in London and the new National Stadium in Beijing, said he felt that change was in the air. 

"Until not very long ago, Paris had several projects that were very, very visible in the world and I feel there is an energy there to pick up where we left off 10 or 15 years ago." 

Sarkozy left open the question of relaxing planning laws to allow more skyscrapers but called for an end to "simplistic" arguments between supporters and opponents of big towers. 

Remarking that the widely detested "Tour Montparnasse", a 210 metre black tower that looms over the Paris skyline, had "not made our job any easier," he said: "We can't have a policy of uniform skyscrapers". 

But he praised projects such as the curving "Lighthouse" skyscraper being built in the business district La Defense. 

Sarkozy, who as interior minister in 2005 cracked down hard on rioting in the poor, run-down suburbs outside Paris and other French cities, said any redevelopment had to include the whole greater city area and strengthen connections between the centre and the suburbs. 

"Architecture must also humanise housing developments and suburbs which have been left to one side for far too long."


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

The idea of Greater Paris is to fusion the dense inner city with dense inner suburbs.










limite de departement : departments border
Ceinture vert : green belt
Parc naturel regional : Regional natural reserve 
Coeur d'agglomeration : core of urban area (This could become the Greater Paris)
agglomeration central : the rest of urban area (real suburbs)
autres agglomerations : other urban areas 
espace rural : rural area 

Core of urban area
6,718,400 inhabitants (2005)
728 km²
9,229 inh/km²

Obvious the Greater Paris could be larger.


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## elfreako (Mar 7, 2004)

I thought Greater Paris (L'Ile de France) had 12,000,000. Am I wrong?


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## Northsider (Jan 16, 2006)

Finally Chicago has some new Paris plans to rip off, erm, base theirs off of...


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## juanico (Sep 30, 2005)

elfreako said:


> I thought Greater Paris (L'Ile de France) had 12,000,000. Am I wrong?


6,7 M is what they call the "Core" of the city (shown in dark brown on the map), it doesn't embrace the whole of the urban area let alone the Ile-de-France region. Actually this core is more or less delimited by inner suburbs whose density is superior to 6000 inh/km² each.


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## rocky (Apr 20, 2005)

actualy it has 11,5 or 11,6, but thats the REGION
The metro area is between 11,5 and 12 and it doesnt totaly matches with the map of the region above.


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## Unionstation13 (Aug 31, 2006)

I like the idea! I hate when planners base design off fade. Thinking of the next century is good! That way it wont be ugly in a decade. :cheer:


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Paris looks beyond city walls to match global rivals *
11 June 2008
AFP

City of lights, of romance and fine food, the French capital is gearing up for a mighty new challenge: to create a "Greater Paris" that reaches outside its historic walls to compete with global rivals London, Tokyo or New York.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has declared it a priority to reshape Paris for the 21st century: to attract investors, preserve the environment and build bridges with the capital's poor, restive suburbs.

As the world's major cities "hunt to attract the best", the fight to draw investors is especially fierce within Europe, where workers and capital can move easily from one country to the next, according to urban planning expert Charles Lambert.

Paris still holds its rank as a global player alongside Tokyo or New York, according to geographer Nadine Cattan, but French leaders agree the city needs to expand outside the ring road to compete in the coming decades.

London already outranks Paris by number of company headquarters, attracts more foreign capital and beats it as an international hub for air travel, says Cattan.

"We are still attractive, but we are losing our competitive edge," said Jerome Dubus, a leader of the MEDEF employers federation in the Paris region.

"Over the past 10 years, Greater London has grown by eight percent, Madrid by four and Paris 2.5," he said, while Milan in Italy has recently built Europe's biggest congress centre.

To meet the challenge Sarkozy named Christian Blanc, the man credited with turning around Air France in the 1990s, as junior minister for the Paris region and asked a panel of 10 architects to draw up visions for a "Greater Paris".

Their first job is to decide what a Greater Paris should include. The 29 towns that border the capital? The greater suburbs? Or should it even, as some suggest, reach as far north as the Channel port of Le Havre?

Next comes the question of government. Unlike its European rivals London, Madrid or Lisbon, or even other French cities such as Lyon, Paris has no overarching metropolitan structure linking it with surrounding towns.

Built in the 1970s on the site of the capital's wartime defences, the eight-lane Paris ring road, or Boulevard Peripherique, creates a clear barrier between the city proper and the suburbs.

Two million residents live squeezed inside the ring road, spread over 100 square kilometres (38,500 square miles) -- an area 15 times smaller than Greater London -- with another 8.5 million living in the greater suburbs.

Paris' last major urban planning project was carried out in the mid-19th century, under the prefect Georges-Eugene Haussmann, a massive renovation programme that shaped the city for 150 years to come.

Grand boulevards were carved out to replace meandering medieval streets across much of the capital, and rules laid down on everything from building shapes and sizes to parks, shops and pavement cafes.

Since then, says Roland Castro, one of the architects chosen by Sarkozy, the gap has grown between a "magnificent" historic centre, fairly attractive western suburbs and "extremely ugly neighbourhoods, cut off from everything."

The disconnect between Paris and its poorer, high-immigrant suburbs is seen as a key reason for the riots of 2005, which started in the Seine-Saint-Denis area northeast of the capital.

"We need to build a Greater Paris based on solidarity, that means breaking the isolation of towns on the Paris outskirts, linking them up and renovating them," said Castro.

Sarkozy has charged Blanc with making Paris a "global city, open and dynamic, attractive, a creator of wealth and jobs."

But the project already faces big political hurdles, as the president's eagerness raises hackles in opposition ranks.

The Ile-de-France region spanning Paris and seven surrounding departments is also controlled by the left, which fears being sidelined in any decision-making process steered from the Elysee.

Meanwhile the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, a rising star and potential rival to Sarkozy, has launched his own round of talks on improving relations between the capital and its suburbs.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

A quite good article about Paris, it not usual, that's true Greater Paris is necessary, 
it is not that we need create a Greater Paris but that we *must* create a Greater Paris.
When we see the density of inner suburbs, the increasing transportation problem (RER A, line 13, RER D), the lacks of extention and new lines planned, the big west-east difference (West : wealthy with many jobs, east : poor with a lacks of jobs), the riots in Seine Saint Denis... it is a fact.

I was today in Les Lilas, a so called suburbs denser, more urban and more vibrant than most european and north american urban center.

Greater Paris should be at last inner city with the inner suburbs and at most the whole urban area, I don't know why some people imagine to include Le Havre inside. :nuts:


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

hkskyline said:


> *Paris looks beyond city walls to match global rivals *
> 11 June 2008
> AFP
> 
> ...


I like this article and how it recognizes Paris' need to better integrate or include it's adjacent communes (municipalities) with the core that is Paris, but I wonder the following:

How does creating an "official" administrative entity called for example Greater Paris (i.e. Greater London) improve things in the largely working-class and immigrant-inhabited suburbs of Paris' northern and eastern suburbs?
There exists throughout Europe and the world boroughs, districts, neighborhoods, etc. that are within major, central cities and they are still significantly segregated socioeconomically in some way or another (scarce jobs, poor schools, areas dimmed unsafe, etc.) Hopefully nobody will think that putting the word Paris in their mailing address will suffice. It's a good start but not enough. IMO, the problem are the cités or HLMs (government housing projects), which are segregated since they form patches around Paris which residents who don't live in them try to avoid at all cost, except for maybe outsiders wanting to do shady business in them.

And will they call such entity Greater Paris like Greater London or will they just annex and call it all Paris, like Berlin has. Many of the ajacent towns that Berlin annexed which today are in one of Berlin's outer boroughs are now in Berlin and some of those boroughs are undeveloped towards the outer edges.

Finally, what are some ways they plan to bring it all more closely together? I don't know that I completely agree with the part of the article that quotes an interviewee saying "the gap has grown between a 'magnificent' historic centre, fairly attractive western suburbs and *extremely ugly neighbourhoods, cut off from everything*," unless it is referring to the _cités_ or _HLMs_, because those are the only parts of the suburbs IMO that are truly cut off in some way. Unless, of course, you consider Greater London's neighborhoods as being cut-off too...meaning, Paris' suburbs are no more cut off than London's in layout. Both are a maze of streets with few wide, direct, major roads leading to the center. Paris is known in Europe as the city with wide boulevards and avenues cutting through smaller, older streets but I think Berlin should get 1st place because its major roads going into the center are much longer, wider, and numerous. This is only noticeable inside Paris. Once beyond the Boulevard Péripherique (ring road), many boulevards and avenues either cease to be, continue only a bit further, or continue well into the suburbs but much more narrow that it hardly seems like a boulevard or avenue.


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## Good (Jun 20, 2006)

I think the architect Casto is refering to the "cités" or "projects" (according to the US terminology(, which have very often been built in the 60's far from the train stations, self-centered around autistic urban planning, on empty lands isolated from the historical centers of the thousand of communities in Paris' suburbs.

The article is pretty good, except that the attractive suburbs are not only located in the west (which is really much richer than the est generally speaking though), but also in the south, the north, etc. Even in Seine-Saint-Denis, the infamous "cités" are often located near cute middle-class residential areas made of detached houses. Actually this the archetype of a Parisian suburb: a historical center or village, surrounded by residential individual houses developed between the 20's and the 60's, with a "cité" made of commieblocks built in the 60's/70's. 
The urban and social differences between Parisian suburbs come from the different ratio between historical center/individual houses/commieblocks.
Versailles and Saint-Germain-en-Laye have an extensive and beautiful historical center, with a lot of individual houses around and very few commieblocks. Clichy-sous-Bois has a tiny villagy core, a lot of individual houses, and a lot of commieblocks.
My theory is a bit caricatural of course.


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## urbanfan89 (May 30, 2007)

I know everyone will skin me for saying this, but they should consider turning the Peripherique into a wide at-grade boulevard and accelerate plans to extend the tramway around the 75. Maybe even build a replica of the city wall and complete the A86 as a replacement. It *could* reduce the division between the 75 and the suburbs, but the traffic would be horrendous.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

It is impossible, the A86 is already crowded, remplacing the peripherique by a wide grade boulevard is a bad idea and could also be like a wall. 
The wide grade boulevard Charles de Gaulle in Neuilly between La Defense and Porte Maillot host about 200,000 cars per day.

Cover the Peripherique is not a bad idea, I see the result in Porte des Lilas, now you don't see when you change of communes, the high density of les Lilas also help.
according me is the problem not the Peripherique but the porte (exists exchange of the beltway) wich are very poorly designed and congestioned.

The idea of the tramway is alos quite bad, it is useless, crowded in rush hours maybe but useless for people that living outside the inner city (8.5 million, 10 million if we add the people that live outside the urban area).
The real solution is a ring subway line around the inner city, in the inner suburbs, according the traffic prevision of 1994, it would carry 1 million passengers per day because we should not forget that the majority of the inhabitants live and work outside the inner city.
A second railway line is also planned further in suburbs, it would use the existing infrasture of the Grande ceinture (outer belt railway)


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2008)

Hope it happens for Paris, those Northern suburbs especially need a major rebuild.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2008)

Minato ku said:


> It is impossible, the A86 is already crowded, remplacing the peripherique by a wide grade boulevard is a bad idea and could also be like a wall.
> The wide grade boulevard Charles de Gaulle in Neuilly between La Defense and Porte Maillot host about 200,000 cars per day.
> 
> Cover the Peripherique is not a bad idea, I see the result in Porte des Lilas, now you don't see when you change of communes, the high density of les Lilas also help.
> ...


Are their not plans for a second ring road in Paris?

I believe the current one suffers from too many junctions and short slip roads which sounds like the problems some UK motorways suffer from.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

The second ring road (A86) already exist and is congested.
The A86 motorway is just not fully completed, the last section between near Versailles should open in 2010.
There is also plans to cover the A86, it is already in construction in Antony and soon completed. 

The northern suburbs are not that bad, there is of course ugly commies block and near the railway track there is too many warehouses. but it is only a small part of northern suburbs building.


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## edubejar (Mar 16, 2003)

^^ Ya, it's my understanding the A86 or Périphérique de l'Ile de France is almost complete. The missing link west of Paris will all be underground and double-decked! 









More about it in English: http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/a86/


You can see today in Google Earth or Virtual Earth the openings on both ends where the A86 surfaces out and you can follow approximate location if you turn on roads in Google Earth or Labels in Virtual Earth. The tunnel will go under some of Paris nicest and greenest suburbs and green preserves, which the tunnel will indeed help preserve.

Here is the tunnel surfacing out on the northern end of the missing link in Rueil-Malmaison (Hauts-de-Seine departement)...just turn on labels on follow the dashed lines:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=48.869302~2.159012&style=h&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

Here is the southern end in Vélizy-Villacoublay (Yvelines department):
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=48.783724~2.156641&style=h&lvl=17&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1

I do however wish that Greater Paris had something like the Ringbahn of the Berlin S-Bahn, which Wiki says they nickname _Hundekopf_ or dog's head because laid-out geographically-correct on a map it looks like a dog's head. My respects to Berlin:bow: The London Underground also has the Circle Line which is reinforced with other lines which partially embrace it.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

urbanfan89 said:


> I know everyone will skin me for saying this, but they should consider turning the Peripherique into a wide at-grade boulevard and accelerate plans to extend the tramway around the 75. Maybe even build a replica of the city wall and complete the A86 as a replacement. It *could* reduce the division between the 75 and the suburbs, but the traffic would be horrendous.


As said, the BP handles tremendous amounts of traffic. Turning it into an at-grade boulevard would not only create more traffic jams, but also ruins the nearby area's as everything would be gridlocked. 

To handle that kind of traffic with traffic lights, you need like 16 - 20 lanes. I don't know what you like to see as a barrier between the center and suburbs, a 6 - 8 lane freeway or a 20 lane boulevard that's jammed pretty much all the time.


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## ChrisZwolle (May 7, 2006)

A major problem in Paris is that there aren't any good bypasses for through traffic. I've driven the A86 multiple times, and it's jammed very often, there are just too many exits and interchanges. The Autoroute changed directions often, which is confusing to drivers not known to the area. A full ringroad without TOTSO's would be better, however not feasible. Maybe it's better to upgrade the N104 or replace it by a more straight Autoroute that's bypassing the city. 

TOTSO = Turn off to stay on. (meaning you have to turn off of the through lanes to stay on the road number).


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## Astralis (Jan 28, 2007)

Chriszwolle said:


> A major problem in Paris is that there aren't any good bypasses for through traffic. I've driven the A86 multiple times, and it's jammed very often, there are just too many exits and interchanges. The Autoroute changed directions often, which is confusing to drivers not known to the area. A full ringroad without TOTSO's would be better, however not feasible. Maybe it's better to upgrade the N104 or replace it by a more straight Autoroute that's bypassing the city.
> 
> TOTSO = Turn off to stay on. (meaning you have to turn off of the through lanes to stay on the road number).


I never knew that exits and interchanges were the problem in Paris. Well, I've never driven there but from what I can see on GE it has really developed transportation system and some of the interchanges are quite impressive...


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Paris to scrap ban on high-rise tower blocks *
8 July 2008
Agence France Presse

Paris city council on Tuesday moved to scrap a 30-year-old ban on high-rise buildings, a decision that could revolutionise the capital's skyline but which is fiercely opposed by green politicians.

The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, has championed a change to rules that currently limit the height of inner-city buildings to 37 metres (122 feet), despite polls showing that two-thirds of Parisians oppose the change.

On Tuesday, Paris city council voted to launch a public consultation on plans to build towers of up to 200 metres at six emblematic sites just inside the city walls.

Part of wide-ranging regeneration plans, the towers would mix shops, offices and childcare centres. Delanoe also backs the construction of new 50-metre apartment blocks to counter a shortage of affordable housing in the capital.

The 37-metre ceiling was brought in 1977 to call a halt to a string of high-rise projects -- including the Montparnasse tower south of the River Seine -- that were quickly seen as failed experiments in urbanism.

"We will not repeat the mistakes of the past," Delanoe told the city council before the vote.

Consultations will begin in January to measure support for each of the projects, according to city councillor for urbanism Anne Hidalgo, who said she hoped work on the first ones could begin in 2012.

City authorities could start accepting architect bids early next year for two disused railway sites, in Batignolles in the northwest of the capital and Massena in the southeast, she added.

French star architect Jean Nouvel, who last month won a contract to build a new skyscraper in La Defense business district west of Paris, has criticised the taboo on high-rises, saying they should be allowed even in the city centre.

"This is not about undermining our heritage. But we have to stop thinking that Paris is a museum-city," Nouvel told Le Parisian newspaper. "Paris is not finished... If vertical buildings can enrich the heart of the capital, why deprive ourselves?"

But others warn that a badly-designed tower can blow apart the social fabric of a neighbourhood.

"Tower blocks ruin the most precious asset of European cities: public spaces," said French architect Henri Gaudin. "They wipe out a whole territory."

Delanoe's plans are fiercely opposed by the French Green Party, who voted against on grounds of energy efficiency.

"Tower blocks are urbanism's equivalent of the four-wheel drive car: flashy machines that devour energy," Green Party councillor Rene Dutrey charged.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party, though it backs plans for high-rise offices, also voted against the proposals on the grounds high-rise social housing would create a "time-bomb" for the city.

"In 10 years we will still have all the same problems, but it's worse to have social problems reaching up 50 metres than 37," said UMP councillor Jean-Francois Lamour.

Delanoe was blocked from changing the planning rules during his first term as mayor by his Green Party allies on the city council.

But the mayor was comfortably re-elected in March without support from the Greens, allowing him to take a second shot and push through the change with the help of the Socialists' left-wing and centrist allies.

"Parisians are uncomfortable with the very idea of high-rise buildings: polls say so quite clearly. But the duty of public officials us to be guided by the general interest, rather than polls," Delanoe said ahead of the vote.


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## MarkusErikssen (Oct 4, 2005)

Great news if they will make it come true!


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## OMH (Aug 21, 2007)

This is good news that highrises can be built inside Paris again, though i think that they should be built only in areas where they don't interfere with old buildings too much, that means that i think they should be built especially in the Southwest of Paris, near to(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_de_seine) Front de Seine , and in or close to the 13th arrondisment . 
IMO Paris doesn't need any skyscrapers in the centre, because IMO Paris already has the most beautiful cityscape in the world, with its broad boulevards lined with trees and 7-8 floor apartment buildings blocks from the late 19th century. 
(pic:







)
(pic by parisiana from flickr)
this is the perfect urban environment IMO


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## ShowMeKC (May 15, 2006)

I'm really hoping the ban stays, we need more cities banning skyscrapers... They hurt urban areas FAR more than they help. The only good thing they do, is sit there and look nice.

Too many American and European cities have been destroying their beautiful centers with skyscrapers these days.


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

^^ Don't worry about this, these places are not really historic even if these are central if you take the whole dense urban core. 











Many of these towers project were know before as the new court Hall in Massena Porte d'Ivry or the hotel in Porte de Versailles.

So this a view of some districts were could be build the high rises.

*Massena Quai d'Ivry*




















*Bercy Charenton.*











*Porte de Montreuil*




















*Porte de la Chapelle*










Like you can see except in Porte de Montreuil and Porte de Versailles (not posted here) these areas are waste lands.

It is better than nothing but I would like to see new towers in more central location like Montparnasse.


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## ShowMeKC (May 15, 2006)

> in more central location like Montparnasse.


Bad bad bad... I thought I just said that it would be a very bad idea to destroy areas like that just to build skyscrapers?


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## Minato ku (Aug 9, 2005)

To detroy what ? 














































When I mean of new skyscrapers in Montparnasse it is not destroy the district but maybe the oposite.
There is ton of ugly 70's buildings, modern skyscrapers would be a lot better than anything here.


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## ShowMeKC (May 15, 2006)

Replacing 70s buildings, or newer, ugly construction is ok. But one bad thing is building skyscrapers and buildings that take up multiple blocks. Another problem, is that you HAVE to design the skyscrapers so that they encourage life on the streets. They should not ever just serve as a place to live or a place to work.


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## Koen Acacia (Apr 17, 2007)

ShowMeKC said:


> Replacing 70s buildings, or newer, ugly construction is ok. But one bad thing is building skyscrapers and buildings that take up multiple blocks. Another problem, is that *you HAVE to design the skyscrapers so that they encourage life on the streets*. They should not ever just serve as a place to live or a place to work.


100 Percent agreed. But: that's still discussing the How, not the If.


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## hoosier (Apr 11, 2007)

Chriszwolle said:


> A major problem in Paris is that there aren't any good bypasses for through traffic. I've driven the A86 multiple times, and it's jammed very often, there are just too many exits and interchanges. The Autoroute changed directions often, which is confusing to drivers not known to the area. A full ringroad without TOTSO's would be better, however not feasible. Maybe it's better to upgrade the N104 or replace it by a more straight Autoroute that's bypassing the city.
> 
> TOTSO = Turn off to stay on. (meaning you have to turn off of the through lanes to stay on the road number).


Yes, a beltway like the ones around London and Berlin would be nice but that is impossible now unfortunately. All that can be done is to improve throught traffic flow on existing, half-finished beltways.


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## hoosier (Apr 11, 2007)

Skyscrapers should only be allowed around the Peripherique in Paris. I would hate to see the beautiful inner city decomated by megatowers.


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