[s3m4j]

Having lived there my whole life (26 years), have you walked ? Paris (stricto sensu) is small. You can walk the longest distance east-west in an afternoon, and buildings do change. Like comparing the 20th district with the 15th, have you not seen buildings change ? Montmartre and Montsouris ? There's not 2 hours of walking between these places.

For the best contrast start at Nation and taking either the subway line 2 (north) or 6 (south), get off every two stations. Between Monceau, La Chappelle and Nation if you don't see a difference...

[forgotmypwagain]

Not sure why this is voted down as Paris intramuros is quite walkable as you said. With a velib (Paris municipal rental bike) you can probably go from South to North in 30-40 minutes.

As you say there is quite a lot of architectural diversity already (I e.g. loved strolling through the Quartier Latin and discovering small side streets and different architectural patterns in buildings and neighborhoods), they just had more consistent city planning as compared to other cities (IMHO) so the differences are not as stark as e.g. in most US cities.

There are many high rises outside of the boulevard peripherique (the ring motorway separating inner and outer Paris), it’s just that most tourists never go there.

Also, many people live in the suburbs that are served by the RER lines, and these have a large degree of variety in both density and style. I suggest visiting e.g. Antony or Gif Sur Yvette (and The Valley of Chevreuse in general) to get an entirely different feeling of the larger Paris area.

Personally I don’t know what the city planners could reasonably do to increase the density of the city without destroying its character, as Paris intra muros is really fully developed already without virtually any empty space whatsoever (contrary to e.g Berlin where even today there’s tons of empty space even in the very center).

I’m not sure if increasing the density is always a good idea as well, as it doesn’t suffice to add more housing but you will have to scale all other required services as well (schools, supermarkets etc.) so growing the city outwards might be better (as area grows quadratically with radius).

BTW the uniformity of the buildings in Paris also stems from a regulation that requires most buildings to have black metal window sills in front of every window.

[etiennemarcel]

Actually, the whole point of the new subway lines (especially line 15, which will go around the city through close suburbs) is densification. City planners want to avoid the city going further and further in the countryside and want to have denser hubs (around new stations) closer to the city.

[CaptainZapp]

I'm quite particular to the 19th district, with it's canal and the Parc de la Villette, which is certainly not drowned by tourists.

It's not a "nice" area in that sense, but it's rather enchanting to walk around, have a drink, or a bottle of wine on one of the bar boats and is growing in cultural experiences to be had.

Granted, I'd probably never have found it on my own if a virtually life long friend wouldn't be living in the area.

Coincidentally I'm off to Paris for the weekend come tomorrow evening and looking very much forward to it. :)

[wnissen]

Yep. One day I walked several blocks in each arrondissement on foot in a single day. The route was a little over 30km, and it took only about 12 hours, with lots of stops whenever I saw something interesting. There are many similarities, but the area by Buttes-Chaumont in Belleville was the most different. Steep hills, taller buildings, very residential. Conversely, the Issy-les-Moulineaux area, while not technically in Paris, sure looked a lot like it!