A Top 12 of the Noughties in Paris, Part Twelve

Le Grand Paris (2009)
Paris is the city museum, the place that found an ideal beauty then froze it in time. It is a dense, tightly-packed city where there are only pocket-sized plots left to develop. So where does the city go from here?

As this decade has wound to a close, this is the question that politicians, architects and urbanists have been asking themselves. Everybody has different ideas, but they all agree on one thing - it must grow outwards. In the 21st century, the time has come for a 'grand Paris'.

Nicolas Sarkozy has been a controversial and prickly President, but if he has had one idea that everybody has supported it is this one. He convoked international teams of architects and challenged them to come up with new visions of the city. It gave birth to a wide range of fantastic projects and a real feeling that Paris could become the first true 21st century city.

However, politicians are more pragmatists than visionaries. It is rare that they forget other agendas and concentrate on a greater good, and the grand Paris that will result from these discussions will surely be nothing like the city proposed by the teams of architects. The first proposals have seemingly forgotten affordable housing and green spaces, and are concentrating on a very French theme; rapid transport systems. It is not clear what purpose these will serve beyond bringing significant quantities of business to French construction companies, and they will certainly not solve any of the city's problems.

Is there still hope for a radical and ambitious grand Paris in the years ahead? Perhaps the most imaginative of all the propositions, and the one that I would love to see, is Antoine Grumbach's river route to the sea. Paris would become a city that would stretch 170km to Le Havre and the seaside, developing the infrastructure between but still respecting the natural environment. Of all the projects, it would probably one of the cheapest of all to put in place, which also gives it a greater chance of succeeding.

Grumbach's project is more a different way to view the city than a giant construction project. It opens the city up to its surroundings, and brings the river back to a role of central importance, a resource that Paris shares with many of the surrounding towns. The real grand Paris will not be a concrete metropolis, but rather a change in people's mentalities. The grand Paris will be a city no longer surrounded by physical or metaphysical barriers.

A Top 12 of the Noughties in Paris, Part Eleven

House Prices Drop in Paris (2008)
Ten years ago, at the dawning of the new century, I made a major decision. I bought a flat. At the time it was a terrifying decision to make, with what seemed like huge sums of money involved. Buying a flat was just not a particularly French thing to do, and was a relatively complex and bureaucratic exercise. Couldn't I just continue to rent like the majority of people in France.

What a difference a decade makes. The moment I have picked out here was the month that prices in Paris finally stopped climbing and went into reverse, but some people believed it would never happen. From 1998 to 2008 prices in the city climbed 190%. I had been one of the winners.

House prices have always meant little to me. If I want to move, I'll always have to live somewhere, and if prices rise across the board, well I won't be better off anywhere else. I was on the ladder though, and admittedly it was a secure place to be. As the decade moved along, I could see who the victims of this inflation were. Colleagues who wanted to become first-time buyers found it impossible to purchase anything affordable in the city, and those renting saw prices increase too. Ten years ago, Paris had been an unimagined bargain. Now it had become a city of speculation like most of the rest of the world.

I'm happy to live in my purchase not because it has made me theoretical amounts of money but because it is a roof over my head. It is also nice to think that there is a little corner of Paris that belongs to me.

It is not clear what will happen to property prices in the city in the years ahead. As the decade draws to a close, house prices have begun to sneak back up again but they will surely drop back to more realistic levels soon. They will not collapse though like they have in the UK and US, because banks were more cautious here and because there is still a severe lack of housing in the city. The bubble finally stopped growing, but it will not burst. The next decade though will be one of very few bargains in the city.

A Top 12 of the Noughties in Paris, Part Ten

Jussieu Music Closes (2008)

Ok, this was not a major event in the history of Paris. It wasn't even a major event in the city the week it happened. For me though it was full of significance.

I wrote about it at the time, calling it the day the music died. This was just to spin some song lyrics into the title of the post, but it certainly marked the moment when I realised that the whole musical scene had changed. To my shame, I'm not even sure when the fateful day was. I used to visit regularly, taking an hour or so to flick through the extensive collection of second hand CDs, or more excitingly, the dirt cheap pre-release discs sold on to them by music industry insiders. My visits got further and further apart until one day I wandered along the Rue Linné and found the shop closed. A few months later I passed by again and saw that it had become a Subway unit. From take-away discs to take-away sandwiches. Real food for thought.

Most of the items in this top 12 have been specific events, but other changes happen more gradually. At the turn of the century, it was possible to predict that the music world would change - indeed, it is an industry that thrives on it - but few would have predicted quite how far. In the year 2000, I was working for an internet publisher, producing a music website. The format of the media was different, but the content was pretty much identical to paper magazines around at the time. Who today though would launch a website that didn't offer readers the chance to instantly purchase and download the music?

The website closed down in 2001, another victim of the internet crash, but it wouldn't have survived the music revolution anyway. There is little place for an all-encompassing media today in the MySpace and Itunes world where musicians can promote and distribute their own creations. Record companies are unregretted victims, but further down the chain, many others have suffered too. This was what brought about the death of Jussieu Music and several other CD retailers across Paris.

So is the music world a poorer place in Paris today? Almost certainly not, but it is a different place.

As musician Jesse Vernon pointed out to me when I spoke to him recently, there has been a huge increase in the numbers of bands around on the circuit, and as a reflection, an increase in the number of live music venues. Music has come out of the studio and back onto the stage. The industry has exploded and new rules are still being defined, but music will always find ways to exist.

A Top 12 of the Noughties in Paris, Part Nine

Smokers Sent Outside (2008)

I've never been a smoker and am delighted that I can now enjoy smoke-free meals in restaurants. However, even I would say that Paris is not the same place without its clouds of smoke. From the cigarette taken whilst stood at a bar with a coffee in the morning, to the cigarette smoked on a nightclub dancefloor, Paris had always revolved around the rhythms of the smoker.

Our opinions on what is acceptable change rapidly. Who could imagine people smoking in a cinema, an airplane or an office today? A bar though is different. In Paris, they were the smokers' second home. Their ceilings were painted with the mustard tints of decades of rising smoke, and the misty haze was an integral part of the bar's soul. It will take time to get used to the new Gitanes-free Paris bar.

It was on the 1st January, the day after the end of year festivities, that the new law came into force. Curiously enough, the changes were welcomed by a large majority of people, smokers included. Nearly two years later though, we are now starting to see the more unexpected repercussions. Takings are down in bars, and several North African Hookah cafés have been forced to close. Some people though see the law as one of the final nails in the coffin of a declining Paris nightlife.

A collective of bars, nightclubs and event organisers have launched a website and petition to protest against the ever increasing number of laws and by-laws that are damaging their trade. Their chief complaint is that the anti-smoking law has forced them to take responsibility for a zone outside of their establishment, the place where smokers now gather to puff on their cigarettes. Laughter and noisy conversations that would once have been muffled inside the warmth of the bar now float up to the windows of neighbours who are more and more likely to complain to the authorities.

The response of the city of Paris has been to launch its own website: http://www.parisnightlife.fr/. This site provides a database of restaurants, bars and clubs that are open at night, and gives a listing of upcoming events. The goal has been to show visitors that Paris still exists after 10pm, but in some respects it misses the point. Paris is still open at night, but what is left of its soul? The volume has been turned down and live music unplugged. Perhaps we can see more clearly now and have fresher smelling clothes when we get home, but will the city still attract young visitors in the years ahead against more lively competition in London, Berlin or Barcelona?

A Top 12 of the Noughties in Paris, Part Eight

The Velib Revolution (2007)
On the 15th July, one day after Bastille Day, the launch of the Velib system introduced many Parisians to the joys of cycling in the city. The idea had originated in Lyon, but it was a wonderful initiative that brought funky new street furniture and changed how people interacted with the city.

More recently, problems have arisen with the cost of repairing and replacing damaged bicycles higher than estimated, but globally everybody is happy with the system. There have been relatively few accidents and it seems to be proof that Parisians can be responsible citizens. Apart from me that is.

One of the dangers of the Velib system is that after a long evening out on the town you are always tempted to jump on a bike rather than walk home or get a taxi. One chilly evening I grabbed a Velib, but I soon got lost in the rabbit warren of one-way streets in the centre of the city. I became more and more frustrated and decided to quickly bomb the wrong way down a quiet road in the direction of a street that I recognised. Unfortunately, a Police car turned around the corner in front of me, forcing me to slam on the brakes. I ended up in an undignified heap on the floor in front of the car. Picking myself up, I was sure that I was facing a night in the cells, or at the very least an expensive on-the-spot fine. Luckily, they had bigger fish to fry and just beeped their horn and told me to get out of the way. I quickly returned the bike to the nearest Velib station then continued my journey home on foot, cold but still in one piece!