2006 - 2026: What are the most surprising changes to happen in major cities?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mousquet

Uhh, it may be exciting to a lot of people, it is certainly not quick.
La Fayette and Charenton streets on my mind. It took something like 10 years for them to set up their cycling lanes. It was a hellish mess for the whole time.
And there are quite more instances of that kind.

Of course, the thing is urban planners have to work on the consequences on traffic over an entire area and beyond, which definitely causes headaches to them.
There are pros and cons, but it's nothing quick anyway.

And sometimes, the result is not satisfying. Like cycling lanes on boulevard de Magenta that are on the sidewalks. Pedestrians are constantly in conflict with cyclists.
They couldn't do any better because of traffic on the boulevard which is an important axis within the central city, that's not wide enough for actual separated cycling lanes.

Cycling traffic on boulevard de Sébastopol is hard to handle. Lanes are too narrow and two-way.
I bet Brisavoine never figured it out, cause he probably doesn't know what a bicycle is.



Paris has never been "gritty". It is the prettiest city in the world.

I don’t like bikes. I find Amsterdam annoying because of them. But more annoying than bikes, it’s cars. They literally destroy our urban fabric. They cannot be abolished of course, but they certainly make our cities much worse. Paris has like what? 1,000 km of rail lines (Metro+RER)? Angry and noisy drivers right in the heart of Paris shouldn’t be the priority.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Here’s right in the Bois de Boulogne and claiming that’s inside Paris

The Bois de Boulogne IS inside the city of Paris. And if you like only central areas, then just say "there are not many parks in the central areas of Paris", don't say "there are not many parks in Paris", which is completely untrue.

Originally Posted by Yuri

Paris got hundreds and hundreds of new gardens, new trees by removing car parking.

If Paris got "hundreds and hundreds" of new gardens, then surely you can post here many examples. Waiting...

[Yuri]

I won’t get into this silly discussion. I was a tourist (and I actually visited Bois de Boulogne in the first time), but the comparison I made with London it was obviously about green in the inner city and of course London is greener, with their square/gardens everywhere whereas in Paris it’s incredibly common walking without any tree at sight. Of course, the few green spaces are mostly French garden, with more sand than green (e.g. Les Tuileries). If I live in the 3eme arrondissement, in a treeless street, the two bois where I need to cross a massive highway to access, are completely irrelevant.

Regarding the gardens, I posted several videos here, my Instagram always show me ordinary streets where parking were removed and replaced my gardens all over the way.

Again, I don’t care if you hate Hidalgo and I certainly won’t engage into this political radicalism pretending places like San Francisco, Chicago or any big, open minded city is hell on Earth.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

in Paris it’s incredibly common walking without any tree at sight.

There are trees virtually in every other street in Paris. It was planned like that under Napoleon III and the engineer he appointed to manage the parks and gardens of Paris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Alphand

It's impossible to walk more than 3 minutes in Paris without seeing a tree. The city, with its tree-lined streets, served as a model for other cities across the world. I remember reading an article from the New York Times from around 1900 in their archives where they said New York should plant trees along its streets like Paris. They greatly lauded it.

Originally Posted by Yuri

If I live in the 3eme arrondissement, in a treeless street, the two bois where I need to cross a massive highway to access, are completely irrelevant.

The level of ignorance you display... And without any humility, as usual.

I used to live in the 3rd arrondissement (for one year). I went to Bois de Vincennes every week to run. There is no "massive highway" to cross to access it. You take the Métro to Porte Dorée (15 minutes from where I lived in the 3rd arrondissement), and then you enter immediately the park (the Périphérique ring road at Porte Dorée is entirely covered by a garden that gives access to the lake and the wood).

There, that's the entrance of the Bois de Vincennes (the 8-lane Périphérique ring road is underneath those trees, invisible):



It's the same for the main accesses to the Bois de Boulogne: at Porte Maillot and Porte de la Muette, as well as Porte de Passy and Porte Dauphine, the Périphérique is covered.

Besides, the 3rd arrondissement has plenty of trees and little gardens, so you picked the wrong arrondissement for a mineral, tree-less example (you would have been more right if you had picked the 2nd arrondissement). Heck, even my apartment opened above a garden (which you cannot see from the streets, like many gardens in the 3rd arrondissement, because they are the private gardens of aristocratic mansions, but there also quite a few public gardens).

Originally Posted by Yuri

Again, I don’t care if you hate Hidalgo and I certainly won’t engage into this political radicalism pretending places like San Francisco, Chicago or any big, open minded city is hell on Earth.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread doing it, so stop pretending. You make preposterous and absurd claims about Paris, then when challenged to prove your claims (like those "hundreds and hundreds" of new gardens), you yell "right-wing activists!".

Anyone can see what you're doing here. If you have examples of what you claim, by all means show it.

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

I've stopped using a bicycle [...] because I don't like to follow trends. Back when I did it, it was wild and you felt unique. Now it feels like you're one among a herd of sheep, and I don't like it.

Yes, because you're the ultimate contrarian, you display it on a daily basis here

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

Paris proper has 5,925 acres of gardens, parks, and woods. That's 23% of the municipal territory of Paris proper.

That's not an unusually high share. And the map clearly shows almost all the green is outside the Peripherique. It's a notable contrast to the cores in NYC, London, Berlin and Madrid.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

The boulevards are as noisy as they ever were. You want me to record a video tomorrow?

A pedestrian or bike is as noisy as a motorcycle? An EV is as noisy as a diesel vehicle?

I remember Rue de Rivioli before the transformation. It was super noisy and had a cloud of diesel soot. Now it favors pedestrians and bikes. It's now a wonderful corridor for strolling.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

I disagree. It’s wonderful having a society that sets proper boundaries and expectations about behavior and the economy. Whatever can be done during the day, should be done during the day—and the only stuff that needs to be open at night are emergency and essential supplemental services.

Generally, I strongly disagree with your preferred vision of a coercive nanny state eliminating individuals' freedom to decide for ourselves how and when we go shopping for what we want based on an externally imposed, restrictive sense of "propriety." There is nothing improper about ordering food late at night, for example. Fortunately, I don't live in your Gilead.

Those formerly overnight employees and people have their regular personal lives back and enabled by an economy that now expects their employers to operate on a natural, human schedule… not an artificial schedule that caters to some rich person’s need for a delivered gourmet cookie at 4 AM.

Or not. It is just as possible that folks who previously worked graveyard and overnight shifts don't have jobs now, or that the jobs they ended up with pay less. Your "proper" and uniform nanny state ideology does not consider why individuals choose to work the shifts that they do. One such reason is that overnight shifts often pay more. Another is that one of a child's parents must be home at all hours. Personally, I don't want to work overnight, but I also don't support forcing everyone else to live the way I want to live when it comes to things like job shifts and shopping hours.

Meanwhile, at least here in LA, nocturnal life still exists, but has declined--not because of Nazi Nanny, but because of economics. Consumers' budgets and habits have changed, so there is no longer the same market for overnight goods and services that there once was.

[Steely Dan]

Anecdotally in chicago, the 24-hr taqueria seems to have filled the niche of the 24-hr diner, which are now WAY less common than they were 20 years ago.

Nothing has really backfilled the 24-hr super market, which are now very few and far between compared to decades ago.

But we do have like 8,000 7-11s and dunkin' donuts, and many (most?) of them are still 24-hr.

As for late night drinking, chicago has never been a 24-hr booze town. The two-tiered liquor license system means last call is either at 2:00am or 4:00am (as it has been since the dawn of time), and everyone gets an extra bonus hour on Saturday night if they want it. From a list I found on reddit, there were apparently still 80 4am bars across the city as of a couple years ago.

[muppet]

This might be interesting - local neighbourhood nightlife.

London has now diversified and although nightlife is still down from the glory years of the 90s and noughties, its been an uptick from the nadir following the pandemic.

Many people now go out into their local high streets which will have entertainment strips and pubs everywhere else. Standouts are Hoxton, Shoreditch, Brixton, Dalston, Peckham, Clapham, Hackney, Hackney Wick, Vauxhall, Islington, Deptford.

The big difference is Londoners go here, and it's more inclusive and friendlier, whereas the centre is for out-of-towners and suburbanites (as evidenced by the trash palace that Soho is becoming):

Dalston:
• Video Link

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

That's not an unusually high share.

That's in the City of Paris proper, which is very small in terms of land area compared to other European cities which have annexed their suburbs.

In the Greater Paris Metropolis (814 km²/314 sq. miles), which is more comparable to other European cities, 39% of the land area is parks, woods, and forests. That's among the highest in Europe.

This map shows the ratio of green space per census tract in the Greater Paris Metropolis. The greener, the higher the % of land area is occupied by green space. The darkest green areas are actually woods and forests.

Then you have tourists who stay only in the redish areas in the center and who conclude that Paris has very little green space.



And the largest royal forests (like Marly, St Germain en Laye, Notre Dame, and of course Fontainebleau) are beyond the borders of the Greater Paris Metropolis. They are the ones which make Paris really unique.

For example I go hiking in the forest of Marly from times to times, it's 45 minutes by public transportation from my place inside the city of Paris proper (would be only 30 minutes driving). In the SF Bay Area it takes also half an hour of driving to reach the green areas in the hills, and no one would say that the Bay Area has very little nature. In fact it's one of its assets, the easy access to nature and green areas.

It's the same in Paris, lots of forests around the city to choose from. In Europe, only Berlin and Stockholm have as many forests around as Paris.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

A pedestrian or bike is as noisy as a motorcycle? An EV is as noisy as a diesel vehicle?

I remember Rue de Rivioli before the transformation. It was super noisy and had a cloud of diesel soot. Now it favors pedestrians and bikes. It's now a wonderful corridor for strolling.

I don't know what you're trying to achieve here. I live here, I know the city, I experience it every day. It's like you're trying to argue with a Chinese that Beijing only has cyclists. Like duh!

Rue de Rivoli and Voies sur Berges are two exceptions. All other avenues and streets are as busy as ever. I was on Boulevard Saint-Germain last Saturday, trying to cross it, and it was packed with cars, 4 lanes of cars.

That sort of traffic (and it was even worse on Saturday, it was totally packed, bumper to bumper):



And the noise is everywhere. Even inside parks you hear the noise of traffic. If you don't like noise, go live in the countryside.

Even the tiny streets in Le Marais have too much car traffic for my taste. It's due to the stupid policies of the city hall. Instead of pedestrianizing the small streets in Le Marais, they have outlawed cars on most sections of Rue de Rivoli. Rue de Rivoli is a large Haussmannian axis. It was never a pleasant street to walk on. They should have kept the cars there, since it was built as a transit axis, and removed the cars from the small streets of Le Marais. They did exactly the opposite! So now you have a large, sterile avenue that feels dead like WW3 has happened, and next to it you have small streets with super tiny sidewalks where you cannot walk in the middle of the street due to the never ending car traffic now that cars cannot drive on Rue de Rivoli anymore.

What a brilliant success indeed!

The other consequence of having closed the Voies sur Berges is the quais along the Seine are super heavy with traffic now, since cars cannot drive on the expressway along the water anymore. What's the purpose of that? It would have made more sense to keep car traffic underneath on the expressway, and pedestrianize, or reduce car traffic, on the upper quais which we, the pedestrians, actually have to cross. But no, they did just the opposite!

The upper quais now:

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

That's in the City of Paris proper, which is very small in terms of land area compared to other European cities which have annexed their suburbs.

In the Greater Paris Metropolis (814 km²/314 sq. miles), which is more comparable to other European cities, 39% of the land area is parks, woods, and forests. That's among the highest in Europe.

This map shows the ratio of green space per census tract in the Greater Paris Metropolis. The greener, the higher the % of land area is occupied by green space. The darkest green areas are actually woods and forests.

Then you have tourists who stay only in the redish areas in the center and who conclude that Paris has very little green space.

You should be at least consistent: I mentioned how Paris expanded its transit lately and you said that has nothing to do with the city, but with the metro region. And that after saying Paris has became a hellhole due "communist" mayors.

Now you post a map showing clearly how Paris Intramuros are indeed arid, lack of open spaces, trees. Paris has been celebrated precisely for addressing this problem, implanting new gardens, removing parking lots to create small green pockets, planting trees everywhere.

Again, if I live in the 4th arrondissement I don't want to take a subway to go to a far away park. I want to get out home and see trees, gardens, small patches of greenery. That's it. And it's good Paris is improving that.

You have this urge to antagonize everybody even when we're praising the city you're always obsessed with.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Yuri

And that after saying Paris has became a hellhole due "communist" mayors.

You are the one who brought up "communist mayor" in this thread. I never mentioned a Communist mayor.

Originally Posted by Yuri

Paris has been celebrated precisely for addressing this problem, implanting new gardens, removing parking lots to create small green pockets, planting trees everywhere.

You keep claiming things that don't exist, and so far have shown no proof of it. If there are "hundreds and hundreds" of gardens that have been planted in the past 10 years (your claim), then it shouldn't be difficult to find some pictures of those gardens. I'm curious where they are....

Originally Posted by Yuri

Again, if I live in the 4th arrondissement I don't want to take a subway to go to a far away park.

Bois de Vincennes is not a "far away park". It's 9 minutes by Métro from the 4th arrondissement. A Métro that stops every 300 yards, so it would take only 5 minutes for the London tube to get there.



And Bois de Boulogne is even closer. Literally 3 minutes by Métro line from the Champs-Elysées. I lived near the Champs-Elysées in my former apartment, Bois de Boulogne was only 3 Métro stations away, i.e. 3 minutes. It's literally next-door. In fact during Covid I even walked there instead of taking the Métro.

Originally Posted by Yuri

You have this urge to antagonize everybody even when we're praising the city you're always obsessed with.

I'm interested in the truth. Not in some fantasies.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

That's in the City of Paris proper, which is very small in terms of land area compared to other European cities which have annexed their suburbs.

In the Greater Paris Metropolis (814 km²/314 sq. miles), which is more comparable to other European cities, 39% of the land area is parks, woods, and forests. That's among the highest in Europe.

No one is arguing that Greater Paris doesn't have green space. Paris is defined by its core, obviously. It has one of the most iconic cores on the planet. The core has amazing assets, but green space isn't one of them. It's one of the least green major cities on earth. Street trees are rare, sizable parks are rare, and the parks tend to be the traditional French style, which are not particularly green. It's a dramatic contrast to places like London and Berlin.

And this isn't a bad thing. I definitely prefer the Paris core. Berlin's core sucks and London's core still trails Paris. But no one would describe Paris as particularly green.

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It's the same in Paris, lots of forests around the city to choose from. In Europe, only Berlin and Stockholm have as many forests around as Paris.

This cannot be true. One can easily walk from the Frankfurt main rail station to a 60 square km forest. Frankfurt has forests in all directions, mostly walkable from city center. Stuttgart and Hamburg are largely the same.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

No one is arguing that Greater Paris doesn't have green space. Paris is defined by its core, obviously. It has one of the most iconic cores on the planet. The core has amazing assets, but green space isn't one of them. It's one of the least green major cities on earth. Street trees are rare, sizable parks are rare, and the parks tend to be the traditional French style, which are not particularly green. It's a dramatic contrast to places like London and Berlin.

The boulevards in Paris have trees. I'm actually a little confused by people saying there's no greenery in Paris. Paris is at least as green as Manhattan, if not more green. I do think Paris is the more attractive looking city when compared to London (or NYC) though.

London is more green for sure, but it has a lot of hedges and other shrubbery, which you won't find much of in Paris (or NYC for that matter). Density is London's trade-off for greenery.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The boulevards in Paris have trees.

The boulevards are a relatively minor share of the streetscape. Most of Paris consists of very narrow, often medieval streets, with zero greenery. That is not the case in most Western cities. And NYC obviously has far more core green space. Street trees are the norm and there are several large, forested parks.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Street trees are rare

Really?

There are tree-lined streets and avenues all across the city, rich and poor neighborhoods alike. That's what Paris is famous for. Even if you are in a tree-less street (and there are many), you always have trees in the next street, or the next little square. You cannot walk more than 3 minutes without seeing a tree. There are trees literally in every neighborhood.

Rich neighborhood:



Poor neighborhood:



It's precisely the cutting of the city trees that the current majority in city hall has been blamed for, because of their mismanagement of the trees as I've already explained (unsupervised street works damaging the roots, proliferating rats due to improper trash collection, replacing the old iron-wrought grills with air-tight resins).

Just yesterday, Le Parisien published this article. Le Parisien is a local newspaper that is usually quite supportive of the Paris city hall.

More than 60 trees cut in the space of 6 years, do we need to worry about the Champ-de-Mars?

Le Parisien
May 12, 2026



The dozens of trees cut down since 2023 on the Champ-de-Mars have alarmed those who defend this iconic Parisian green space. They argue that the soil compacted by repeated 'events' [organized by the Paris city hall, such as concerts, horse jumping competition, etc] and the "wounds" to the trunks of the trees are weakening this green heritage of more than 2,000 trees.

[...]

https://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris...2-05-2026-ICUY45TDLFHEZAIX4YGYCUDG6M.php

"Weakening this green heritage" is a bit of an understatement. 'Wanton destruction' would be closer to the mark, but Le Parisien does not dare to criticize the city hall too much, as usual. They need to earn a living so they need to keep in good terms with the mayor's team.

Originally Posted by Crawford

One can easily walk from the Frankfurt main rail station to a 60 square km forest.

I suppose you're referring to the Frankfurt City Forest. A forest crisscrossed by motorways, so not exactly 60 km² of uninterrupted forest.

According to Google Map, to walk from Frankfurt main train station to the closest entrance of the Frankfurt City Forest, it takes 2.6 km (1.6 miles) and 35 minutes of walking. And it's not the most pleasant walk, along an expressway.



And you arrive here:



In Paris, walking from Gare de Lyon to the entrance of Bois de Vincennes it takes 2.7 km (1.7 miles) and 37 minutes.



And you arrive here (the Périphérique ring road is buried under these trees):



Then you have access to one of the largest urban parks and woodlands in Europe, which is crossed by no motorway and no major road. Bois de Vincennes is 3 times the size of Central Park. With a 14th century Gothic Sainte Chapelle in the middle of it, like in a fairy tale.

I've lived in a quite a few cities across the planet, I do not hesitate to say what's bad about Paris, but frankly the Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes are pretty unrivaled. Even now with more than 15 years of mismanagement by the Paris city hall, lots of trees cut, mismanaged lawns, etc, it's still an incredible nature experience. Hyde Park in London is great (I lived 3 streets from it), Golden Gate Park in SF is great, they are the two parks that I would rank the highest after Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes (I like Central Park less for some reason), but they don't have the expanse of the two Paris bois. In the remote corners of these woods you can really feel far away from Paris, which is not the case in more urban parks like Hyde Park.



And this is just the entrance of the Bois de Vincennes, showing not even 20% of it. Most inner Parisians stop there at the lake, but for me the best part of the Bois de Vincennes is beyond. There are other lakes, areas of complete forestry, the occasional view of the Gothic Sainte Chapelle in the distance, grassy areas with no one around, soccer fields, even a US baseball field nestled in one of the most remote corners of the bois!

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The boulevards are a relatively minor share of the streetscape. Most of Paris consists of very narrow, often medieval streets, with zero greenery. That is not the case in most Western cities.

The Paris city hall has published a map showing all the trees under city hall supervision in Paris.

This is the central, Medieval area of Paris. It shows the number of trees in each tiny area. I believe the trees in private gardens are not included. Also, the trees in national properties are not included, which is why there are no trees indicated on the map at the Louvre and Tuilerie Gardens, which are under the responsibility of the national government and not of the city of Paris. Ditto for the Luxembourg Gardens, under the responsibility of the French Senate, and the best managed park in Paris (as good as the city parks were 25 years ago). It appears tree-less here because it's not under the authority of the Paris city hall.

[New Brisavoine]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

London is more green for sure

It depends of your scope. In the central areas yes, but if you enlarge the scope Paris actually has more greenery. I made this gif with satellite views of Paris and London, exactly at the same scale.

London lacks the large forests that surround Paris. In England they felled their forests in Medieval times, there remain very few of them. In France the kings and the high lords were more interested in preserving the forests, to use as game hunting grounds (and also because the forests in the Middle Ages were big sources of income, back when their was no coal, just wood and branches to heat houses in winter, and also timber to build the houses, and acorns to feed the pigs). In England, despite the fact their monarchy was centered on London, I don't know why their kings did not keep large forests like the royal forests surrounding Paris. One hypothesis could be that the English kings had less power than French kings (due to parliament, etc), so they could resist less the forces pushing for cutting down the forests to make a quick buck (or squid). In France before the French Revolution the laws regarding the forests were extremely stringent and harsh. Cutting trees in royal and manorial forests was a high crime. The forests suffered a lot after the French Revolution, part of them were felled, but thanks God about 60%-70% of them were preserved in the Paris Region.



It's one thing that annoyed me when I lived in London. Yes you have many smaller green areas everywhere, squares, smaller parks, etc, but you cannot just ride a bike or drive 30 minutes and escape it all in a super large forest like you can in Paris. The closest to my place was Richmond Park (which is more a forest than a park), but I was a bit disappointed when I went there. First of all it was a real hassle to get there by bicycle, endless streets with lots of traffic everywhere, red lights, etc. And when you finally get there, yes it's nice, but it's not like the huge forests surrounding Paris. I only went there once and did not return.

So I ended up going only to Hyde Park, which is nice, but after a while you're longing for something bigger, more removed from the city. When I get tired of Bois de Boulogne here, I just take the Métro/bus and I can have access to some very large royal forests, within 45 minutes by public transportation where you can really relieve the tension. Very hilly forests that you could not imagine in a flat country like northern France. And with enormous 200 year-old oak trees, some of them probably older than the French Revolution. Frankly it's a nature lover's paradise. I could never find similar places in London.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by New Brisavoine

It depends of your scope. In the central areas yes, but if you enlarge the scope Paris actually has more greenery. I made this gif with satellite views of Paris and London, exactly at the same scale.

London lacks the large forests that surround Paris. In England they felled their forests in Medieval times, there remain very few of them. In France the kings and the high lords were more interested in preserving the forests, to use as game hunting grounds (and also because the forests in the Middle Ages were big sources of income, back when their was no coal, just wood and branches to heat houses in winter, and also timber to build the houses, and acorns to feed the pigs).

Interesting but I'm talking about the view that the average person would encounter while walking or driving around the city. I'm not sure what forests have to do with cities, nor am I sure why having one in a city would be a good thing.