The Walkable City of Paris (what English cities can learn)
Paris is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and fairly easy to get to from England. It’s also one of the best-designed, a grid system with most buildings no more than four stories high (good for community and good for fire safety).
The only ‘tall buildings’ are the Eiffel Tower and a few others, this is not a city of skyscrapers. But rather walkable streets and many beautiful public parks. Most people walk everywhere and take the Metro (like our underground) rather than drive. Which is a lot safer in France!
The central areas are divided into Arrondissements, and are built for people over cars, with over 100 walking-only streets. Along with many car-free areas along the River Seine and many narrow historic streets. Often it’s faster to walk, than waiting for a bus.
For rainy days, there are many passages couverts for people to pass the time having coffee or window-shopping. And it’s easy to explore popular areas like Montmartre, as cars are restricted.
And when French people get thirsty from all that walking, the city is full of public water fountains, that spew out fresh clean safe water, so they don’t have to buy bottled (or even carry reusable bottles).
Paris has been designated a ’15-minute city’, where everyone can walk from their home to work, the park, shops, the boulangerie and the patisserie, all in quarter of an hour!
Paris is the only city where you can step out of a railway station and see simultaneously the Seine with its bridges and bookstalls, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens – nearly everything. What other city offers you so much, as you leave a train? Margaret Anderson
