ABSTRACT
By the mid-nineteenth century, following the industrial revolution, many cities had become extremely crowded, especially those contained by protective city walls, such as Paris and Barcelona. From 1853 through 1870, Georges Eugène Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine during the rule of Napoleon III, implemented large-scale public works in Paris that included carving wide boulevards through the dense medieval city center, laying out boulevard systems in peripheral areas to promote urban development, turning former royal hunting grounds at the edge of the city into large new public parks, and redesigning existing city parks. Drawing on Baroque axial planning ideas, the new boulevards linked important public places – train stations, public markets, civic buildings, and parks. A municipal sewer system was built under them and many thousands of trees were planted along them. The boulevards were lined with mandated six-story buildings sporting uniform empire-style façades and mansard roofs. Ground floors of these buildings held cafés and restaurants. At the time, Haussmann’s work was looked upon as a model of city modernization, and the boulevards were much admired worldwide. However, particularly following the excesses and failures of the modern urban renewal projects of the 1950s and the self-reflection this engendered in the planning profession, Haussmann’s Paris has been much criticized on the rightful grounds that it displaced large numbers of mostly poor people, and that it was an expression of political power meant to clear out working-class neighborhoods that were hotbeds of resistance and made it easier for Napoleon’s troops to move through the city and break up political unrest.
