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Old Paris Is No More

laphamsquarterly.org

11–20 of 107 posts

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#11
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today (because we forgot the cost) Or because we think it was worth it, in the end.

> Or because we think it was worth it, in the end. This. I mean if the people put up with the problems caused by the new construction, I believe they deserve credit for being pro-civilization. Not the "oh no, look their old world is gone" nonsense. Surely nobody rebuilt the city for garnering sympathy.

> I mean if the people put up with the problems caused by the new construction

TBF the people who were affected by them were just shoved out of the city center.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#12

I don't understand this romantic idea of Olden Times. I doubt any Parisian misses dying of simple dieases or just not having access to emergency care. I don't understand why people would ever romanticize with the old days. Sure, we ought to remember our history but we don't need to romanticize it. It was awful.

Lets try with some quick cut and paste.

Paraphrased from wikipedia on the term fairy tale - is mainly used for stories with origins in European tradition, originally meaning a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation.

Wikipedia on Paris - The Parisii inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. This meeting place of land and water trade routes gradually became an important trading centre. The Parisii traded with many river towns and minted their own coins for that purpose. During the 17th century, Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of Louis XIII, was determined to make Paris the most beautiful city in Europe.

And from this post - Costly confusion, the triumphant vulgarity, the awful materialism that we are going to pass on to our descendants. ... Thousands of people were forced from their homes to make way for luxury buildings that the former tenants would not be able to afford. The overcrowding turned Paris into an “immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, the plague, and disease work together in harmony,”. One way to successfully quell rebellion then was to to insulate the rich from the poor. The social ills that helped motivate the 1848 revolution did not disappear with the renovation of Paris and the subsequent restructuring of its social life. They may have even been made worse by the stratification of urban life,

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress is not all-encompassing; it is entirely possible to claim that 21st-century medicine is preferable to 19th-century medicine while simultaneously preferring 19th-century architecture, art, or other aspects of society. Paris today may be cleaner and safer than it's ever been, but it's also far less exciting or intellectually interesting than it was in its heyday. The prevalence of this view in the tech communi…

Knowing Paris as it is now and comparing to the photographs in the article I am happy that cleanup was performed. The old architecture was maybe interesting to some extent, but very close to a huge slum.

Note that you can also clean things up without tearing it down entirely. Many cities have retained historical centers in that style without keeping the "slum" bits, and it does makes for more interesting walking around than huge boulevards and avenues.

There's an architectural movement to come back to these more human-sized city designs too: smaller streets, more mixed use, less emphasis on large (and motorised) transportations, incorporation of structural shading and breeze-shaping, ...

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Progress is not all-encompassing; it is entirely possible to claim that 21st-century medicine is preferable to 19th-century medicine while simultaneously preferring 19th-century architecture, art, or other aspects of society. Paris today may be cleaner and safer than it's ever been, but it's also far less exciting or intellectually interesting than it was in its heyday. The prevalence of this view in the tech communi…

Knowing Paris as it is now and comparing to the photographs in the article I am happy that cleanup was performed. The old architecture was maybe interesting to some extent, but very close to a huge slum.

Still great to see some remains of the older Paris here and there, such as le Marais.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#15

I don't understand this romantic idea of Olden Times. I doubt any Parisian misses dying of simple dieases or just not having access to emergency care. I don't understand why people would ever romanticize with the old days. Sure, we ought to remember our history but we don't need to romanticize it. It was awful.

You can romanticise the parts of it that was beautiful.

A lot of times people talk about particular aspects of a period, or in general, of objects, not absolutely everything that comes with it.

You don't need to bind every thing to its context entirely.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#16
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today (because we forgot the cost) Or because we think it was worth it, in the end.

> Or because we think it was worth it, in the end. This. I mean if the people put up with the problems caused by the new construction, I believe they deserve credit for being pro-civilization. Not the "oh no, look their old world is gone" nonsense. Surely nobody rebuilt the city for garnering sympathy.

I understood a completely different point from the article.

The old mediaeval city was destroyed to essentially disenfranchise the working poor. No longer would they have strong defensive positions in small winding streets during revolution, they were also displaced from the city centre to make space for the wealthy and elite.

Money and power weren't working towards a pro-civilisation agenda. They were working in their own self interest against the struggling masses.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#17

I don't understand this romantic idea of Olden Times. I doubt any Parisian misses dying of simple dieases or just not having access to emergency care. I don't understand why people would ever romanticize with the old days. Sure, we ought to remember our history but we don't need to romanticize it. It was awful.

Progress is not all-encompassing; it is entirely possible to claim that 21st-century medicine is preferable to 19th-century medicine while simultaneously preferring 19th-century architecture, art, or other aspects of society. Paris today may be cleaner and safer than it's ever been, but it's also far less exciting or intellectually interesting than it was in its heyday. The prevalence of this view in the tech communi…

Intellectually interesting is not an objective thing to pursue. I believe if you look closely all modern day architecture is an intellectual marvel. Architects of today have an attention to detail that you wouldn't find in the olden days. As for SF, I would never choose to live there. A wooden old looking house for a very very high rent ? I don't see any data to support living there.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#18
post #8

I don't understand this romantic idea of Olden Times. I doubt any Parisian misses dying of simple dieases or just not having access to emergency care. I don't understand why people would ever romanticize with the old days. Sure, we ought to remember our history but we don't need to romanticize it. It was awful.

Surely you can think of stuff that got worse with time, development seems to be a tradeoff in general.

No, I cannot. Everything got better with time. Except maybe air quality. I cannot imagine spending a day in 18th century. I would either die of disease or kill myself. It only looks great in paintings and pictures and what not.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#19
> suburbs, with the border between the two divided by a highway called “the periphery” (its construction completed in 1973), a ring road that encircles all of Paris proper

A more exact translation would be "peripheral". And unlike what the author asserts, Haussmann’s transformation did not remove all popular lodging from Paris. And I'd say that removing the slums, adding proper sanitations, opening wide boulevards were a good thing.

Re: Old Paris Is No More

#20
post #4
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today (because we forgot the cost), but not back in the day.

> Today (because we forgot the cost) Or because we think it was worth it, in the end.

Pretty much. Every change comes with a lot of whining, even if they would be a massive improvement (example: replacing the imperial system)
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