The Everyday Marvel
On discovering public space in Paris.
A version of this post was published on Lindsey Tramuta's wonderful Substack.
Paris has exploded into bloom.
After a typically grey, cold, damp Spring, too long by half, we welcome the arrival of long, hot summer days. I'd like to shove off work and spend every day in one of the capital's landmark public spaces. I favor the Tuileries, so magnificently planted, so supremely confident in its place at the city's physical and historic heart, so ready to delight visitors from Paris and the world alike. It makes me want to chuck my phone into the fountain and spend a year absorbing with all five senses the cinematic reality of life in this remarkable city.
Because I can't get down to the Tuileries every day, this summer, I'll be turning on all my senses and seeking the cinematic in the everyday.
Paris seems happy to oblige, beginning right out my own window, from which I delight in the view of abundant flowers and plants tumbling from window-box displays and terracotta pots that fill our courtyard. The heavenly scent of jasmine growing from a schoolyard fence greets me on my way to the boulangerie, and I'm pleased to spot colorful new buds on a plant placed just outside the doorway of La Poste.
The generosity of my neighbors, and the city's hardworking gardening team, is unsurpassed. No corner is too minor to warrant a bit of prettying-up. The standard that everyday life be replete with beauty provides no exemptions. There is simply so much care lavished on Parisian public spaces, and those in public view, from the grandeur of the city's palace gardens to a pot of tiny violets hung on a white window shutter.
My urbanist mind is captivated by these details, which grace Parisian public life with a communal dignity. I'm fortunate to be making a permanent home here after splitting much of the past year between Paris and several American cities. The details of the urban fabric of these cities remain fresh in my mind, and the comparisons are enlightening. In the United States single-family homes dominate. Those isolated social units separate them from their neighbors. Social life is often relegated to backyards, and cars come and go from alleyways and private garages. Front yards are for manicured lawns and sometimes gardens, yes, but these are meant to convey individual status.
A North American can spend a lifetime avoiding engagement with neighbors and local places. The everyday experience is, at heart, a private one.
Life in Paris, the seventh densest city in the world, differs wonderfully. We're packed in twice as tightly as in New York, itself much denser than any of its North American peers. In Paris we see each other, we hear each other, and we can't escape each other. We lack private backyards, so we gather in cafés. Our kitchens are tiny, so we walk to the shops every day. The remarkably resilient design of our buildings and neighborhoods welcome neighbors of every income level, so our front "yards"---that is, our sidewalks and balconies and window ledges, serve as a canvas on which to express creativity, to plant beautiful things, and to delight each other.
Yes, it's all very charming, la vie truly en rose. But this matters for reasons that transcend aesthetics. French urbanity reflects a special cultural imperative: that we care for what we have in common.
The administration of Mayor Anne Hidalgo enacted this idea via a public works program unparalleled in its bold vision and its courageous execution. The banks of the Seine, increasingly reclaimed from the pollution and danger of what was previously an urban expressway, now come alive in all seasons with people running, strolling, and gathering to appreciate one of the world's most memorable urban tableau. A systemic redesign of city streets is putting transit and bicycling first. This package of policy commitments, backed up by capital investments, helps to realize a key policy goal: a city where daily needs (including access to green space) can be met in a short walk or bike ride.
That these efforts are already producing a more beautiful city, with more pleasurable public spaces, would be enough on its own. Beauty and pleasure, after all, are foundational to life in the capital. But there's another reason they're so important.
The sprawl, automobile dependency, and privatization of life that characterize most major cities contribute mightily to a changing global climate, the effects of which increasingly dominate our news cycles and will require resource efficiency to mitigate and reverse. Realizing a future that avoids the worst horrors of climate changes means making better use of our resources: living closer together, using our cars less often, and building communities where we care for each other and for what we have in common.
While North American cities languish for lack of commitment to their own transformation, Paris flourishes, not due to its intrinsic beauty but because its citizens value living well together. Paris models what we must insist all cities become: well cared-for by policymakers and citizens alike, welcoming to all, and dedicated to the simple pleasures and daily joys of living in a vibrant human community.