Paris to be the First “Post-Kyoto” City?
Tags: christian science monitor, combating climate change, derelict land, financial crises, napoleon iii, nicolas sarkozy, post-kyoto city, president, sustainable city
Atelier Castro Denissof Casi
The nine-month study commissioned by the Ministry of Culture has resulted in 10 plans to build the world’s first sustainable city, one that focuses on combating climate change, improving public transit, and adding new parks. The study aimed to make Paris greener and more self-sufficient, with a better connecting between the suburbs and the central core and a greater mix of housing.
The Christian Science Monitor summarized some key themes in the submissions:
All of the architects rejected the 1960s French solution to suburban sprawl of creating discrete new satellite cities. Instead, most proposed filling in the unused spaces of the metropolitan area – derelict land, underused public buildings, weed-filled tracts along railways and rooftops – to preserve the countryside and make the metropolis more compact.
[...] Most of the planners urged intense use of space within the limits of historic Paris. They talked of high-speed trams on top of the beltways, malls on top of subway stations, and gardens on the five square miles of rooftops in Paris. A new mixed-use neighborhood in the center of Paris could arise, they said, if only the neglected stretch of land between the Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est train stations in central Paris were freed up for private development.
As Nicolai Ouroussoff for the New York Times points out, the middle of one of the worst financial crises in history is hardly the time to rebuild an aging city, especially when the French government has not yet mentioned how it would fund Paris’ reinvention. Political complications are likely, too. Metropolitan Paris is comprised of about 400 local governments.
What bothers me more, however, is the historic specter of Napoleon III’s master planned Paris of the 1850s, a redesign meant to cure physical uncleanliness and social ills. Are today’s carbon emissions and ethnic ghettos in Paris yesterday’s crowded and unsanitary slums? Are environmental concerns a socially acceptable way of displacing people in the name of urban renewal? You can read a critique here.
Nevertheless, the fact that urban designers, planners, and architects have thought in-depth about reimagining a sustainable Paris is exciting news. All of the commission entrants propose that there is a strong link between urban policy and social equality, using environmental policy to reverse Paris’ significant social divisions. You can see more of the submissions here: http://bustler.net/index.php/article/ten_scenarios_for_grand_paris_metropolis_now_up_for_public_debate/
