ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces the book’s main argument, questions and themes, and outlines key aspects of the comparative framework developed in the subsequent chapters. By chronicling the transformation that London and Paris experienced during the nineteenth century through the lens of urban transport infrastructure, Cities, Railways, Modernities highlights the ways in which the future of the two cities was imagined and the role that railways played in that process. In doing so, it challenges and refines two of the most dominant myths of urban modernity: A planned Paris and an unplanned London. The debates, plans and decisions that are examined throughout the book reveal London’s inroads towards coordination and a view of the whole that are comparable with how change was effected in Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century. Conversely, they contrast the reality of modern Paris with visions that were far more ambitious and far more comprehensive than the legacy of wide boulevards and monumental vistas as conceived by Napoléon III and his Prefect, Georges-Eugène Haussmann.
