[cm2187]

Contrary to what the article says, Haussmann isn’t really a controversial figure in France and much of what makes Paris one of the most beautiful and visited cities in the world is thanks to the architecture he imposed, something that few, if any, modern urbanist can claim.

[hrktb]

Would it be self-fulfilling if we disagreed on him being controversial ?

Perhaps an aspect of it Parisian's Paris and tourist's Paris is fundamentally different, and the current leadership is more or less trying to undo a lot of what Haussman stood for to make Paris friendlier to live for Parisians. Whole blocks are closed cars to bring back shops and 'village' like environment.

Modern residential neighbourhoods are rebuilt with lacy paths, cul de sacs, pedestrian/car cohabitation, closer concentration of housing.

A lot of what Haussmann did was beneficial from a health perspective, but we know we can solve these issues in other ways, an I don't think most planners would do it the way Haussmann did if they had the choice to go back in time.

[harperlee]

When thinking in historical times you should put yourself in that moment of time. Of course if someone travels back in time with current knowledge will do things in different ways than Haussmann - they know whats going to happen, they know about things Haussmann didn’t.

[hrktb]

It's not just historic fantasy though, there was opposition to his way, but they didn't have the political clout nor could oppose centering the cities around cars.

It's not just Haussmann either, most countries had that tension around letting cars dominate or not (there was an excellent 99pi episode about these tensions [0]), it just happened that one side massively won benefiting from economics, politics and power distribution.

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern...

[irishsultan]

I think you need better evidence for this tension than an episode that's talking about a different country half a century later (the time difference is especially important, because the changes to Paris took place at a time when cars were still being invented, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benz_Patent-Motorwagen "widely regarded as the world's first production automobile" was patented in 1885, 15 years after the initial development according to Haussmans plans stopped)

[hrktb]

The opposition was not against the car at that time, but against the military purpose (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges-Eugène_Haussmann#The_d...), the crushing of the lower layers of society, who had to move away from the renovated areas, and more than anything the amount of money thrown into it that didn't seem to be worth it.

Haussmann succeeded mostly because of the emperor's constant backup and the basically no limit budget he got from him. Once these backings were gone he was out of the game.

He wasn't otherwise very well supported by the people. I kinda like this quote:

> In his memoires, Haussmann had this comment on his dismissal: "In the eyes of the Parisians, who like routine in things but are changeable when it comes to people, I committed two great wrongs; over the course of seventeen years I disturbed their daily habits by turning Paris upside down, and they had to look at the same face of the Prefect in the Hotel de Ville. These were two unforgivable complaints."[17]

[grumpydba]

> Perhaps an aspect of it Parisian's Paris and tourist's Paris is fundamentally different, and the current leadership is more or less trying to undo a lot of what Haussman stood for to make Paris friendlier to live for Parisians. Whole blocks are closed cars to bring back shops and 'village' like environment.

Yes Haussman was definitely wrong when he planned a city for cars. More seriously just check paintings or videos of Paris before the expansion of individual cars. Read books. It was highly walkable.

[BenderV]

Today (because we forgot the cost), but not back in the day.

[masklinn]

> Today (because we forgot the cost)

Or because we think it was worth it, in the end.

[thecleaner]

> Or because we think it was worth it, in the end.

This. I mean if the people put up with the problems caused by the new construction, I believe they deserve credit for being pro-civilization. Not the "oh no, look their old world is gone" nonsense. Surely nobody rebuilt the city for garnering sympathy.

[phillc73]

I understood a completely different point from the article.

The old mediaeval city was destroyed to essentially disenfranchise the working poor. No longer would they have strong defensive positions in small winding streets during revolution, they were also displaced from the city centre to make space for the wealthy and elite.

Money and power weren't working towards a pro-civilisation agenda. They were working in their own self interest against the struggling masses.

[shoo]

This kind of thing is described in Scott's book "seeing like a state". The state takes steps to modify the environment and society to make it more legible to management by a central bureaucracy, to further the aims of the state.

For example, the state knocks down existing dwellings to build more roads so it is easier for the army to rapidly mobilize and crush unrest.

The state begins to require all subjects to have a last name, where the people themselves have no real need of one, in order to better identify individuals for more effective taxation.

It's worth a read, both for the appreciation of how it plays out in the world, and also as a source of interesting analogies for how other regimes, such as large hierarchical organisations, will embark on grand projects to attempt to make the surrounding environment more legible and tractable to centralised control and governance.

[Nasrudith]

To be frank those defensible streets themselves were an older agenda back when one of the functions of city was defensibility - in the service of the same elite.

They were always for the purpose. While there are rightful aspects to complain about the displacement sanitation and boulevards were good things even if their motives were ulterior.

[coldtea]

>Not the "oh no, look their old world is gone" nonsense.

Taking for granted that that is nonsense, is the same error, a blind belief that any novelty is better than what it replaces.

There were political motivations behind the change (and impact on the population at the time) not just some noble march towards better.

To give a simple example, bulldozing down Venice to build some Mall-ridden monstrosity that looks like 20000 other places in the world, would not be better in any way, and people would be right to lament about that "old world" being gone.

(Of course many moderns, especially Americans having no history, live in a perpetual now, and can't put things into perspective. They judge all things like mobile phone models, the newer the better).

[masklinn]

> I mean if the people put up with the problems caused by the new construction

TBF the people who were affected by them were just shoved out of the city center.

[raverbashing]

Pretty much. Every change comes with a lot of whining, even if they would be a massive improvement (example: replacing the imperial system)

[coldtea]

>Haussmann isn’t really a controversial figure in France

Today, when the change has settled down, and nobody lives that remembers before him, no. At his time, and for a while, he was.