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Originally Posted by big T
Minato, as a fellow French citizen I'm thoroughly ambivalent about this thread. I have to say I very much share much of Mercutio's amazement at your continuing efforts to bring out the most generic and unremarkable parts of an exceptional city which, like it or not, people come from around the world to visit and experience. Okay, so you're showing 'the other side' of Paris and, given we're on an urban forum, that is indeed conducive to interesting discussion. But I think your presenting this as 'the real Paris' is simply taking it too far.
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The truth is that there's no one "real Paris". The user anm, despite being from Moscow, summed it up brilliantly on the third post of this thread:
"Paris has many different faces - historic core, riverfront, La Defence, big parks, social housing/commiblocks, etc. This is one of them. It may not be a major tourist attraction, but I do not think of it as "plain".". Paris is clearly a surprizingly diverse city. And actually, one needs time to explore that diversity as too often people stick to one perception of the city, without noticing the forest behind the tree.
Now this being said, it's true that sometimes even I could be annoyed to see Minato Ku posting pictures of dull buildings to show his Paris in some forums, but hey, if that's what he likes, why would I prevent him from doing it? He's free to do so. Even if his images aren't the same as mines. As I've told you, there's no "real" perception of Paris. Each individual has his own. Paris is a giant of 10 million people, a country in itself. It's natural that it doesn't ring the same bell to anyone.
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I'm not about to try and guess your intentions or motivations, but after going through your comments you really come off as quite insecure. Why are you feeling the need to compare Paris to London and NYC -- it is you who brought up Ldn in this thread after all?
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First, it's Mercutio who brought up London in this thread, not Minato Ku. And I'm actually the one who voluntarily provoked him, because Mercutio/Monkey is notoriously known as a London troll. Second point, London and NYC have absolutely nothing in common. You simply cannot put them in the same category as they are structurally totally opposed. Manhattan is a packed up city whereas London is a city with no border. I really fail to see what else than financial activities and language both cities would share.
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Paris is simply different, and we should embrace this fact and make the most of it. I don't see any value in pretending that the average Parisian drinks Starbucks coffee and dwells in a brownstone walk-up -- we all know it's not true, and hopefully we all realize it's not even something to shoot for.
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Well, be glad or sad, but Starbucks are getting tremendously popular even here in Paris. The reasons are simple. The expresso costs 1€ in Starbucks as opposed to 2.20€ in regular cafés. Furthermore, the service and comfort in a Starbuck is generally far superior to the one in a regular café. If Starbucks could at least pressure usual Parisian cafés to adapt, that wouldn't be that bad. Even if I do like going to Starbucks because of this, it's true that it's quite sad to see Starbucks spreading all over the world, but that's how it is.
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I hope I'm not sounding too harsh, I really think I understand where you're coming from and what you're trying to do, but I feel you could maybe tone down the insecurities a bit and start embracing all that makes Paris, Paris -- in its own unique way. You'll see that there is much, much more to 'modern Paris' than commie blocks and cookie-cutter green glass lowrises -- like Mercutio said, why not show the Louvre pyramid? the Quai Branly? Velib, anyone?
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Are you sure you're French? If that's the case you're probably not from Paris, which is fine by the way. When was the last time you've been to Paris? I hope I'm not sounding too harsh, but you talk as a tourist.
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you know, all this stuff that is getting done here today and will be adopted elsewhere tomorrow -- Paris' contribution towards reinventing urbanism, right here and now.
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It's been a long time that Paris has invented nothing in urbanism. Wild unregulated suburbia scattered with cités HLM here or there and soulless road avenues. That's what Paris "invented" as an urbanism since the 50's. Nothing to be really proud of.
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Maybe you should try to spend some amount of time in Ldn or NYC, surely that will shatter a couple of myths and idealizations and help you appreciate how good you have it in la Ville Lumiere -- and how pointless all this versus crap is
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I fail to see why you blame Minato Ku about this. He made a lot of efforts to avoid that war to happen. Mercutio is the one who proposed it, and I'm the one who accepted it. If there are people to blame, that would be I and Mercutio, not Minato. Anyway, my sister lives in London and I've spent several months in New York City. I know well enough both cities to realize they have absolutely nothing in common. I fell in love of New York at the very first minute I crossed Manhattan Bridge by taxi, and this has never disappeared from me.
It's all a matter of urban life, density, vibrancy. It's only during my second stay in NYC, in august 2001, that I realized that if I loved that city so much, it was mainly for the same reasons I was in love of Paris. It has quite depressed me to tell the truth. Indeed, I realized I didn't love the city because it was "exotic" but because it was like home... making me feel as an ugly individual lacking curiosity. But facts are facts. The people are the same, they behave the same, the streets are the same, the neighbourhoods are the same. And funnily what people don't like in them, are generally the same things.
London is another thing. It's more open, more green, more about having the good things of big cities without having the bad things. As someone who chosed to live in Montreal, I guess you would be happier in London than in NYC or Paris.
But anyway, you should understand something. When I compare Paris and NYC the way I do, it's not because I feel insecure of anything. It's simply because I share my own experiment, which I agree could be different to others. As about Minato ku, I know him well-enough to know he's actually a fan of Tokyo before everything. Hey, he's even named as a district of that city!