Greening Paris: A Brief History

Today's greening plan is not the first effort to make Paris a green city. Here are notable greening moments from Catherine de Medici to Georges-Eugene Haussmann. 

This podcast was created by Roger Mummert for www.theparisproject.net.

Transcript

Greening Paris: A Brief History

From Medieval to modern times, Paris developed as a dense and  impacted city with relatively little green space. But along the way, there were efforts to capture the health and social benefits of open spaces and greenery. 

Let’s hand out gold stars for notable figures in the history of the greening of Paris:

Catherine de Medici created the Tuilleries as an Italian Renaissance garden in 1564. A century later, the gardens were expanded and redesigned in a French style by Pierre Le Notre. The gardens were initially reserved for royalty. They were opened to the public under Louis XIV in 1667, then made a public park after the Revolution in 1789.

Henri IV created Place Royal (now Place des Vosges), an open space for all Parisians to gather. He planted mulberry trees to support a silk industry to be centered in the square. Today, the square has mature chestnut and linden trees, nurtured there under historic protection.

Maire de Medici, Henri’s widow, created the Jardin de Luxembourg in 1612. A tip of the expansive garden was snipped off by Haussmann in 1865, but remaining today are 57 lush acres of emerald lawns, formal gardens and tree-lined pathways, fountains and pools. The Jardin brings precious air and light to the Left Bank. 

Voltaire wrote “Des Embellisements de Paris” in 1749 to decry the filthy, unhealthy state of the city. He called for leaders with the courage to eradicate squalor and infection and to build new squares, fountains, markets and wider streets.

Despite these good efforts, Paris remains one of the least green cities of Europe. With just 9.5 percent of its area covered by green, Paris lags way behind Oslo (68 percent), London (47 percent), Berlin (30 percent) and Copenhagen (25 percent).

How did Paris become so green-deprived? The 19th century renovation—called Haussmannization—had a lot to do with it. Even today, the word ignites passions and outrage among Parisians. Defenders say it opened up the city to breath and circulate, made it clean, made it modern, made it more green. Critics say it furthered class-bias; it cleared out the poor and groomed a city for the rich—who populated the new tree-lined boulevards.

The renovation was brutal and autocratic. Haussmann ordered the piercing of tangled old neighborhoods and laid down wide, straight boulevards. Entire neighborhoods vanished, and thousands of poor were displaced to the city’s periphery. In total, 20,000 buildings and 100,000 apartments vanished.

Then came rebuilding, and the newly configured central Paris became a refuge for the wealthy bourgeoisie and a showcase to the world. New parks, squares and tree-lined promenades were part of the plan, though mostly because the emperor had admired them in London during his first exile there; Haussmann was more concerned with water mains, sewers and traffic. To be sure, the city was made greener by the renovation but not everywhere and not for all Parisians equally.

Much good came of Haussmannization, but it is a telling postscript that (despite a wealth of scholarship and popular books about Haussmann and a very generous Wikipedia entry), Paris has no museum that presents and analyses his work. This, in a city of museums. His due is given in the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the city of Paris, as part of an expansive continuum of the development of Paris over millennia. 

Clearly, Haussmannization never could happen again the same way. Today’s principles of urbanism are sustainability and equality, as well as transparency. Times have changed. Pierce a neighborhood today? Try getting a construction permit to move an old wood beam in the Marais. 

Indeed, the politics of trees have changed. The Haussmann plan called for the planting of 80,000 trees, many of them “arbres d’alignment,” trees planted in alignment—largely because Haussmann was a neat freak. Today’s greening plan calls for “urban forests.” And the greening plan involves input from communities and advocacy groups so that greenery benefits all parts of the city equally. The 19th century renovation called for small parks in each of the 80 quartiers to locate greenery within 10 minutes of every Parisian. (In reality, 27 parks and squares were created, including two vast parks on the city’s periphery.) Today, Mayor’s Hidalgo’s vision is for a 15-minute city: each function of living, working, shopping within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. 

This being Paris, every idea has multiple interpretations, every government plan provokes public scrutiny (and outrage), and all things are subject to extended discussion—including history, itself.

The city’s records of the renovation largely were lost in 1871 when the Communards set fire to the l’Hotel de Ville. Included in the ashes was an enormous map (27 panels) that had hung in Haussmann’s office and which chronicled all stages of the transformation. Accordingly, Haussmann’s own memoir is elevated to the status of central artifact. It documents with extraordinary detail, down to the last centime, his expenditures, including those for promenades et plantations, or greenery. And while Haussmann’s self-aggrandizing nature shines through, he does spread a few breadcrumbs to his crew of engineers and horticulturists, many of whom wrote memoirs, as well. And thank God: What could be more French than retiring to the countryside and writing one's memoires!