| 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. |