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The train stations in London are the best in the world, each a wonderful experience in its own right. Taken all together, it’s hard not to become enchanted with the wealth of ingenuity that Londoners brought to building a great rail system. There is no doubt that cities all over the world modeled themselves on London’s great stations. By looking carefully at each one, it would be possible to piece together the best of the best. But to add a bit of challenge, we think the test of a truly outstanding train station is its context: how it situates itself in the surrounding neighborhood. This is an enormous opportunity for London, and in some situations there are uses that show possibilities for renewing these very important gateways, such as Borough Market between London Bridge and Southwark Cathredal. Many of the stations are or have been renewed and some have major new additions such as the Eurostar Terminal within Waterloo.

The London Underground

We use mass transit in every city to which we travel, and we love the Tube, putting it among the top of any city’s transit system. We have never been tied up on it, having used it over a hundred times. Yet we know that Londoners love to hate it. Sure, it’s crowded, smelly, and hot in the summer, but it gets you almost anywhere quickly and safely. It has good information and a fare system that allows people to take full advantage of it. In addition, it is “the” place, like transit systems in other great cities, to see people from all over the world. It is as interesting as the most vibrant international marketplace. Everyone is on view and in the right situation, you can get into a conversation with someone you would never meet anywhere else. Still, it can get better… The real opportunity for London Transport is to upgrade the stations and better integrate them into each community.

Double Decker Buses, London Cabs

Getting five people in the back seat of a cab is one thing; allowing them to face each other and carry on a conversation is a phenomenal asset and wonderful experience (especially when compared with New York City cabs). Besides the vehicles, London cab drivers are the most professional in the world. They make you feel well-taken care of, and we like to think that their new-found freedom from insane levels of traffic has made them less peevish and better able to act as real front-line ambassadors for London. And the London double-decker bus is a world-class treasure. Weaving through the city, taking in everything from a second-story height is a photographers dream… and very special experience for tourists and residents alike. What’s more, with the new congestion charges (see below), the bus has become a very real option for getting around. Terrific!

London Traffic Congestion Charges

This really seems to be working. We can’t remember being able to move anywhere on the surface in London in the past. Now it seems actually to be a pleasure. It is easier for pedestrians and bicyclists, and once again you can get somewhere by riding the bus. We think congestion charges are only the start: A whole series of public-space and pedestrian improvements can follow. We can even envision that London could create (or re-create) some truly great streets. For example, Oxford Street, which formerly was oppressively full of traffic, now seems actually quite comfortable both in a bus and on the sidewalk. Quite a change.

Covent Garden

This is the best of the “festival marketplaces” in the world. Its key location near theaters, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, and Piccadilly Circus make this entire area the most interesting and dynamic center anywhere for eclectic entertainment, crafts, upscale retail, restaurants, and museum. Historically, it served as a true food market, and one could feel deprived of that use today, but what has replaced it has no parallel anywhere. With that in mind, continuing to improve Trafalgar and Leicester Squares will make this area really shine.

Seven Dials, Neal’s Yard

This district at the northern end of Covent Garden is very comfortable – almost too comfortable – for London. It is truly special, with a scale that shows a kinder, gentler side of London that you didn’t think existed. The small buildings, narrow streets, and little alleyways reveal wonderful treasures of little courtyards, such as Neal’s Yard, that seem almost like a hidden paradise. And while it is very historic, the overwhelming feeling is that it is contemporary, with uses that fit the setting. New York has Greenwich Village and Paris has the Marais, but this area is somehow even more enchanting. It’s one of those places positively draws you toward it, and makes you want to return to often.

Harrods Department Store Food Halls

There is no classier series of upscale food halls with better displays, counters, and eateries anywhere in the world. You can feast your eyes and browse to your heart’s content. It is better than a museum, partly because here you can buy anything you want.

Leadenhall Market

No market in the world contrasts more with its setting than Leadenhall Market. South Street Seaport comes close, though it’s a bit contrived. Leadenhall, however, is the real deal, having been in operation for 122 years (although some form of food market has been on this site since the Middle Ages). But the marvel of Leadenhall is that it is has survived in an environment of urban devastation. The contrast has only gotten worse with new development. We feel strongly that contemporary design, with its array of materials, could be wonderfully contextual; yet architecture in the “City” is about empty, blank building bases with reflective glass and heavy columns. New retail and storefront design, practiced all over London and in other great cities, has not, unfortunately, carried over into new development in the “City” – or for that matter, in Canary Wharf.

Columbia Road Flower Market

This is the place to go to see a huge array of flowers, and perhaps even buy some if you can maneuver through the tightest crowd we have ever been wedged into. The Market has been around since the 19th century, tucked away in one of the small streets in London’s East End. Expanded to include coffee, crafts, and antiques, it has evolved into a quite a trendy Sunday hangout and appears to attract people from other parts of the city, too. Get there early if you expect to get anything.

Borough Market

One of the best collections of gourmet foods anywhere, with specialty growers and producers from all regions of the UK and other parts of Europe. Tucked under the railroad trestles next to Bridge Station and Southwark Cathedral, it also one of the highlights of the South Bank walks along the Thames. This is one of only a very few spaces that we consider a place I would go to for my annual birthday pilgrimage.

Millennium and Hungerford Pedestrian Bridges

It is fantastic to be able to walk over a major river without vehicles rumbling by at your side. Even better, London has provided two such places to do this in the last few years. The results of these efforts, combined with the comfortable pedestrian crossings on the London, Tower, Southwark, Waterloo and Albert Bridges, has virtually brought the two sides of the Thames together. This is certainly a transformative opportunity, probably wisely foreseen by visionary planners, which will define London for the future. No city has such opportunity to reinvent itself, and these bridges, more than any other development, create the setting in which to do so.

Battersea Park

This wonderful neighborhood park provides a good model for success, along with the great Olmsted Parks in the United States, for London’s Regent and Hyde Parks. There are so many creative/inventive aspects going on here, it’s a virtual laboratory for defining the neighborhood park for the 21st century.

Queen Mary’s Gardens

This great garden within Regent’s Park, though very well-hidden, is a true treasure for all of London. The outdoor theatre which we were so lucky to attend gave us a real thrill.

St. James’ Park

This wonderful park has always been a respite from the busy city around it. It sits between Buckingham Palace and Whitehall with great views to either side. It is spiritual place, and far and away the best park in the heart of London. Its only real rival is Queen Mary’s Gardens, which has many similar qualities, but is buried deep in Regent’s Park.

The most important indicator of a successful, livable city is the comfort of children, women, and seniors. During our last few visits to Paris we specifically looked at how women used the city’s public spaces. Our research has shown that good public spaces always draw a high proportion of women, because women are more selective about the spaces they use. They choose to be in places where they are comfortable, and they avoid spaces where they are not. We found that Paris excels in the number of places where women are predominant. As we went from public space to public space, we saw women exhibit confidence, security, and–in a few unforgettable examples–extreme conviction.

The key to comfortable public spaces is the presence of a range of amenities that support human use. In Paris, the most prominent amenity is the movable chair, which is present in nearly every park and of course in every café. Movable chairs allow people to choose where and with whom they want to sit, giving them a sense of freedom. People feel more at ease in places that give them such choices, and they will choose to use those places again and again.


Paris is also the city of cafés, which are an amenity unto themselves. You’ll find cafés of all kinds in all places–parks, wide boulevards, or tiny pathways. They provide something that is fundamental to Parisian culture–the opportunity to sit outside and watch the passing scene. And Parisians do it all year around. The café embodies the Parisian attitude toward comfort in public space, as well as the sophisticated management strategies that make comfort possible. A particular café in the Jardin de Tuileries illustrates this concept perfectly. The cafe is designed to be comfortable during cold weather, and it expands in the warmer months to accommodate well over 200 people outdoors. A garden, sculpture, and pond provide the backdrop for the café ensemble.

Another indicator of livability is the abundance of “triangulation,” a term we use to describe the way layered, complementary uses create a convergence of activity in public spaces. Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens provides the foremost example of triangulation in practice. The range of activities is so broad that people can easily spend an entire day there–at least. Movable seating “triangulates” with a central pool and small sailboats to create a very full experience in one area of the park. In another area, the combination of a puppet theatre, carousel, café, bocce court, and basketball court around a children’s play area makes a very exciting destination for all ages.

Bocce, which the French call “boules” or “petanque,” provides a spectacle for bystanders, as do the tennis and chess players. There are quiet pleasures such as sunbathing, admiring the espalier apple and pear garden, reading and eating. Indeed, there is something for every age and background. A high level of security personnel (the gardens are located on the grounds of the French Senate), and a high fence with gates that close at dark, keep it a safe and well-maintained haven within a densely populated area.

The triangulation integral to the best public spaces in Paris has resulted in a richness of experience that people have come to expect both as residents and as visitors. And without this richness, Paris would definitely not be the city of lovers.

Because we stay nearby, we have gone through the space at least 20 times, so we were prepared for little or no use, but a rat was unexpected.

A space that offers so few options, that controls you and limits you in every attempt that you might want to make, we know instantly that people who try to use it in the way they want are going to be irritated and will not stay long, and probably will not return. In addition, the fact that it is an art museum of “renown,” you would think that there could be a garden with sculpture, amenities, and flowers…something that might lift one intellectually or spiritually.

In contrast, when you compare this public space with the sculpture gardens of the Hirschhorn and the National Gallery in Washington, or the Modern Art Museum’s garden in New York, you realize how far off the mark the Tate Modern is. What a loser.

Inside the situation is similar, especially in the main hall where world-class contemporary sculpture is laid out randomly, seemingly with no pattern. This could be a wonderful setting with more features like that of a garden atrium or plaza, such as cafes and seating that are provided in the American Wing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. The space is acting more as a storehouse for art, not the public space that it could and should be.

Canary Wharf

We had never heard positive comments about the Canary Wharf development, so we were not expecting a lot when we went there. We were more disappointed than we expected to be. They have four outdoor public spaces and a maze of underground shops that are virtually hidden from view and hard to find. Three of the public spaces were filled with cars. Evidently, they think so little of their public space that they think a car show is an attraction to enliven them.

This very large complex rivals any office park in size. the complex fails on every score. The bottoms of the buildings are stark and empty, or covered with columns to hide any use that might try to reach out. Even when you get behind the columns or arcades, and you get some retail or a nice entranceway, the result is still stark and uninviting. Any outside street is uninteresting and uninviting. One almost hopes to see some seedy characters to add some personality to the place. There is clearly a very limited clientele that they want to attract.

Contrast this complex with either Battery Park City or Rockefeller Center and you see how far off the mark Canary Wharf is. One begins to think as Winston Churchill said… We shape our building, and afterwards they shape us… pretty scary!

ABN AMRO Headquarters

This building should not be in London or any city, not even Houston or Atlanta. It would not add anything anywhere. We don’t even think it should be a stand-alone building in a suburban office park. But to locate next to one of the most vital and interesting neighborhoods in London is a travesty of the highest order. One can only think that people who work in this building must be from another planet that must be placed on this earth to stamp out anything of interest around it. To even think of putting such a building in the city is amazing. It reminds us of the Bonaventure Hotels in Atlanta and Los Angeles, which Holly Whyte labeled the “most brutal” buildings imaginable. We thought we would never see another building like this in any city after exposing those disasters.

The design of these buildings, like the Canary Wharf complex, is driven by fear. They are designed to be separate and apart, aloof and indifferent to the world that they have removed themselves from. It is scary to think what the people are like inside these building, what decisions they make and what impact they have on the rest of the world. The contrast between ABN Amro and Spittlefields Market and the Whitechapel and Aldgate Neighborhoods is probably the starkest anywhere. This new development imposes a way of life that is so contrary to, alien to, and so inferior to what is already there. Build on what is there. Don’t destroy centuries of growth and impose something so superficial and empty in its place.

Old Street

The newly improved section of Old Street in Shoreditch really missed the mark. It undertook to make a horrible, by all accounts, one way eastbound road through an important and revitalizing neighborhood, and did merely a road improvement when it could have done a major community renewal project by creating a series of public spaces and development opportunities to draw people instead of just a road. Traffic could have been part of the solution, but it was the only consideration. A fifty year decision that truly limits the potential of a very important and interesting community is a sad commentary for a city that is beginning to focus attention more than ever on regeneration and public spaces.

The South Bank Centre; National Theatre, Royal Festival Hall, and Queen Elizabeth Hall

No complex of public performance space could be more uninviting than this. We went buy these buildings four times on our last visit and we could not tell you what they were or what was going on in them, even after the fourth pass. All we know is that it is the center for skateboarders, and they provide some real entertainment.

The whole second level is a real mystery, and where you enter any of the facilities is also very hard to decipher. The potential for this complex fronting on the South Bank walk and the Themes River is extraordinary. Add the Shell Center, The London Eye and the Old County Hall (Saatchi Gallery, London Aquarium, Dali Universe) and you have a row of buildings that would compile the greatest entertainment stretch anywhere in the world. And it is across the river from Parliament and some of the most important public buildings in London. Awesome! We think that this stretch of the South Bank Walk is functioning at 20% of its capacity.

Shell Center

Why can’t corporate headquarters in critical locations be shining examples of their participation in their city’s life? Rockefeller Center with GE as its signature tenant is the best example. But Shell (Royal Dutch) is along with ABN Amro, and the Canary Wharf development sadly lacking in their responsibility. Their location is center to the future of London and the walkway from Waterloo Station through their building to the waterfront is horrible, – probably the worst experience in London and certainly the worst gateway.

GLA Building (City Hall) and Plaza

There may be many important innovations in this building, but when you see it for the first time, it is very dreary and dull. It also seems so minor a building for such a grand city. It has a terrible sunken plaza that is only good for skateboarders and skaters. We think the building should be replaced with a building worthy of being the “City Hall” of a great city. Move out or replace.

British Museum Entranceway

This almost feels like the truck entranceway or the entranceway to a public building that doesn’t want visitors. There is no art, no flowers, and no park… nothing to do. And yet behind this empty courtyard is a vast, wonderful museum, one of the most honored in the world.

We call this the “art of the path” — the way a sidewalk or park trail engages your attention, making it an asset to the surrounding environment. Small gaps along a path can be brushed by as a walker moves on, but larger interruptions by the wrong use — a long blank wall or a loading dock — can ruin a whole blockfront. Many of Paris’s streets respect the art of the path, thanks largely to the consistent excellence of street-level retail architecture, but this quality is diminished by the increasingly oppressive presence of traffic.

For Paris to survive as a livable city, sanity must be restored to traffic management along main thoroughfares and around major focal points.

Unfortunately, Paris is becoming a collection of destinations without accommodating the ability of people to get from one place to another. The current preference for automobiles has resulted in a lack of pedestrian-friendly connections between destinations. The walkable Paris is threatened by excessively fast vehicle traffic on the roads along the Seine, traffic-dominated focal points such as Place de la Concorde, and the conversion of historically significant boulevards into giant parking lots for cars. (One major exception has been the removal of parking from the Champs Elysées, and the broadening of newly paved sidewalks.)

This single-minded mission to maintain traffic flow, maximize roadway space, and accommodate legal and illegal parking wherever possible detracts enormously from the pedestrian experience. Public spaces have been separated from one another to such a degree that people often need to travel by Metro for short distances rather than walk along the surface. This detracts from the wonderful experience of discovering things while walking from place to place, and leaves many streets and neighborhoods unseen.

In Place de la Concorde, automobiles take precedent over pedestrians.

For Paris to survive as a livable city in the long term, sanity must be restored to the traffic management along main thoroughfares and around major focal points. Other cities have made progress in this area. In London, a “congestion pricing area” demarcated last year has already resulted in a 36% decrease in private transport within its boundaries. This decision has made London a city where people can once again ride a bus that won’t be bogged down in traffic. Not only that, but people can also shop or stroll along thoroughfares like Oxford Street without the overwhelming intrusion of vehicles. By examining the results of recent steps taken in London and other cities, such as Zurich, Copenhagen, Curitiba, and Bogota, we learn what a city can achieve when the negative impacts of the automobile are mitigated.

The presence of vehicles on Paris sidewalks infringes on human life and ultimately eats away the soul of the city.

In spite of these recent examples, to get from destination to destination along the major thoroughfares in Paris can be a miserable experience. Walking between the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay and from the Tuileries to the Champs-Elysées are dangerous exercises. It is also unpleasant to cross the streets to reach many of the city’s major destinations. For example, before entering one of the world’s greatest parks, Luxembourg Gardens, one encounters frenetic traffic on two of the four roadways that surround it. The park is a gem gleaming across the street, but the chaotic roadway is a major barrier, separating the park from the neighborhood around it –- what we call “the outer park.” The result is that the adjacent neighborhood is not a natural extension of the park, and vice versa. (A mitigating factor is that there are entrances on all sides of the park, six in total.)

Taking a bus in Paris can also be a frustrating experience. Along some of the city’s major streets you can walk faster than the bus chugging along next to you. While the addition of special bus lanes to streets such as Rue de Rivoli has helped to some degree, every driver seems to think they can use these lanes as well.

The bus stops in Paris are top-notch, but the buses themselves get bogged down in city traffic.

While the larger streets and boulevards dominate the city with their fast-moving traffic, the small streets have become a refuge. In fact, sometimes it seems that tourists populate and actually take over the smaller streets to the detriment of local residents. This is especially true where all traffic has been removed to form pedestrian-only zones. In fact, the effect of these zones, except when they are for street markets such as Buci and Mouffetard, has been to cheapen the area, attracting loiterers and driving away residents.

To witness a city such as Paris surrender itself piece by piece to the supposed needs of the automobile is unspeakably tragic.

The danger in this situation is that the small streets no longer serve as reservoirs of neighborhood shops for local residents. These streets are so overwhelmed with stores for tourists they leave residents no alternative but to walk the busier, more uncomfortable streets with their less personal shopping experience. A tell-tale sign is evident in the numerous Paris “walking” guides. These books show very few walks along or through the traffic-dominated areas of the city. On a broader level, this phenomenon illustrates how the vehicle has eroded the sense of identity we derive from our neighborhoods.

Since many of Paris’s boulevards and squares have fallen victim to excessive vehicular use, the city’s sidewalks should provide sanctuary for pedestrians… But do they? Sadly, the answer is “No.” Increasingly, pedestrians find themselves competing for sidewalk space with parked cars, motorcycles, and scooters. A common scenario: You’re standing on a corner waiting to cross the street when suddenly a throttling motorcycle pulls up beside you, ready to disembark from the sidewalk where it has been illegally parked.

The city's street life is diminished by allowing vehicles to occupy space once reserved for pedestrians.

Jane Jacobs described the erosion of cities by automobiles as “a kind of nibbling, small nibbles at first, but eventually hefty bites.” The presence of vehicles on Paris sidewalks is a prime example of “nibbling” in action. It infringes on human life and ultimately eats away the soul of the city. To fully grasp the consequences, you need only watch the city’s children and elderly people navigate their neighborhoods with fear, denied their comfort by the ubiquity of vehicles.

To witness a city such as Paris surrender itself piece by piece to the supposed needs of the automobile is unspeakably tragic. Paris will always be great, but if it is to retain its unique station as the urban ideal to which other cities aspire, it needs to begin recognizing the small opportunities to preserve and create spaces that allow comfortable, natural human activity.

With all its movie theaters, restaurants, and even a high-end hotel, Leicester Square is an “I don’t know what I am” kind of place. There’s the building offering theatre tickets for venues that are not even in the area; all the heavy traffic and an anomalous green park in the middle; and its role as a crossroads of sorts between Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and Covent Gardens – so much that this space doesn’t seem to have a real identity.

South Bank and Riverside Walk

This could be the most fantastic waterfront promenade, when you realize the abundance of important uses along the river: performance facilities, the London Eye, City Hall, Borough Market, and the Tate, to name just a few. One can only begin to imagine how extraordinary the whole experience could be, if it weren’t for the sad fact that so many of the major institutions contribute so little to the experience. Either they simply have little presence, or they offer up simply awful parks such as at the Tate Modern or the Greater London Authority (GLA). Some of the obstacles to achieving success in this place are significant, but there are plenty of other simple things that could be done. One would be helping people coming out of the Tube stations in seeing and knowing where they want to go; or better identifying buildings, along with their activities and their entrances, or layering a series of amenities, such as seating, public art, drinking fountains, and small performance spaces. All this could add significantly to the visitor experience on the waterfront, at a relatively small cost.

Old Spitalfields Market

Spitalfields Market and the surrounding district are being ferociously nibbled at by narrow-minded, stifling development that is contrary and destructive. This place could be one of London’s greatest attractions as a gateway into a fantastically diverse and entrepreneurial neighborhood. Working with the market and adjoining neighborhoods to build on their enormous and varied assets would far out-perform the development that is currently proposed for the AREA. Where is the wisdom that seems so prevalent in other parts of London? Why are people blind to the city-building, job-creating, reservoir of talent that is alive and ready to grow in this Market and the rest of East London? Help!

Kensington Gardens

This special area covers the west end of Hyde Park, including Kensington Palace and the Orangery Café. It is mostly used for strolling, rollerblading, swan-watching and paying tribute to Princess Diana at her former residence. While Kensington Gardens is otherwise rather limited in what it offers, there is an attempt to seek excellence. For example, we came across one of the best playgrounds we have ever seen here, a wonderful model for any park.

Oxford Street

What a difference six months makes. Oxford Street used to be so depressingly full of traffic that you wanted to get off it as quickly as possible. Now you feel like exploring it and discovering all it has to offer. It is the best-connected street in the city and borders interesting areas along both its north and south sides.

Great Court, British Museum

This is an enormously interesting space: a building within a building, and within the interior building, a magnificent library that one can view from windows in the restaurant on the backside from the entrance. But, as magnificent as the building is, the space between the interior and exterior buildings could be a great public space where art and architecture could be combined in exciting ways. And yet the building seems to give off an air of being too important for art, or for people to comfortably fit in and be a part of it.

Lloyd’s new building dates from 1986 and is commonly listed as one of London’s most magnificent pieces of modern architecture. Along with the Pompidou Center in Paris, it’s a one-of-a-kind kind building, and is intriguing because of that. However, with only minor changes at the ground floor, the building could have been truly interesting to both building users and passers-by. Being able to view the ground floor from the sidewalk would be wonderful. And for the ground floor uses to more accessible would help enormously for this unusual building to fit into the city.

This could be a wonderful example of modern architecture, if it only had more accessible uses at the ground level and better views into the ground floor activities, which could all make for a very lively base feeding into the Leadenhall Market. It’s fun and memorable to see the guts of a building all on show right before your eyes.

Broadgate

One wants to like this complex that attempts to copy New York’s Rockefeller Center. As a recent development (1985-1991) it tries hard to please. It has many of the makings of a quality office complex, but it is disjointed and fussy where it could be simple and connected. Arcades obscure the retail; art and water features are not well integrated, more of the “look but don’t touch” variety. The skating rink area has so many levels that it’s hard to know where you really are, or where you want to be.

Berwick Street Market

This is a very small and insignificant market in a rough and messy area. However, it sits in the middle of the West End. At present it seems to be used mostly by local residents and office workers. It is known to be very cheap but good quality. With some improvement to management, appearance and product offering, this small market could add vitality and help bring up this area. An opportunity waiting to be taken advantage of.

Hyde Park

This is a wonderful, vast open space, originally designed for horseback riding, waiting to become the best park in the world. It has probably the largest open field of any urban park and in a recent walk across the entire length, we felt so glad and relieved to get to the other side. Looking at and drawing from the extraordinary models of Central Park and Prospect Park in New York and Brooklyn, respectively, as models for Hyde Park, could give a whole new opportunity to a great city.

Regent’s Park

Regent’s Park is similar to Hyde Park, but is in a more residential area and could be an even greater asset to the families and visitors that could take advantage of its many possibilities.

Rue de Buci

This street is a place where tourists and residents converge. It’s not long, but is packed with wonderful uses. The produce stands and flower stalls, along with the cafés, stores, and restaurants, make this agglomeration of activity as intense as any we have seen outside of the bazaars and souks of the Middle East and Asia. There’s always a lot of passion on display as the street merchants, performers, and even pedestrians compete aggressively for attention.

Rue Montorgueil

We once witnessed a small elderly woman with two canes tottering carefully down this wonderful street. Her face was full of determination. It was clearly not easy, but she was comfortable in her surroundings nonetheless. Most streets aren’t good for the elderly, but Rue Montorgueil was good for this woman. Without the constant threat of vehicles to deter her, she felt at ease venturing onto this public thoroughfare by herself. Few other urban streets provide the elderly with such security.

But Rue Montorgueil is a lot more than just a pedestrian street. Over time, it has accreted uses that complement each other, forming an urban ecosystem of commerce, social gatherings, and street performances.

Rue Mouffetard

Rue Mouffetard is the gold standard for commercial streets. Its central purpose is not the movement of traffic, but to serve as a neighborhood marketplace. There are no cars during the active parts of the day, and its merchants have elevated street displays to an art form. But the true thrill is watching people as they engage in the ritual of shopping for their daily needs. Look closely and you’ll see how many of the customers stay loyal to their familiar vendors, yet also engage in frequent chance encounters. It is a world unto itself, street theater at its best.

Rue des Rosiers

Rue des Rosiers has been the main artery of Paris’s Jewish quarter since the Middle Ages. Shops housed in 17th century buildings promote themselves in Yiddish and Hebrew, and you’ll find excellent kosher foods and specialty items behind their windows. The sense of history and tradition is palpable, but there is also a tension between the area’s cultural heritage and the encroachment of trendy commercial ventures.

One end of the street is now home to chic boutiques like those that have sprouted up all over Le Marais (the larger historic district where Rue des Rosiers is located). But the area has survived far worse threats in the past, and there is every reason to believe it will remain a vital ethnic enclave. The area’s longtime Ashkenazi residents, refugees from 19th century pogroms in Eastern Europe, now share the street with Sephardic Jews, more recent immigrants from North Africa. This population shift is an encouraging reminder of how places like Rue des Rosiers help new arrivals adjust to the city, and vice versa.

Rue St-Louis-en-l’île

This short, narrow street is actually the “main drag” on the Ile Saint-Louis, the smaller of the two islands at the center of Paris. There are so many tiny attractions vying for your interest that, small as the street may be, you cannot absorb it all in one visit. It is reminiscent of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, nearby our office in New York City. It may seem to some that tourists dominate, but in reality there are layers of users that flow through the street quite independently of each other. Each group of users contributes to the activity of the street, enhancing the others’ experience.

Despite its assets, the street is almost overwhelmed by parked vehicles. They seem very out of place on this pedestrian island. And when cars try to drive down this small path and impose their ill-fitted presence, they distract from the peaceful, almost spiritual street experience.

Viaduc des Arts/Promenade Plantée

The Viaduc des Arts is a series of 45 working studios for craft artists located between the arches of a restored 19th century viaduct running alongside Avenue Daumesnil. With restaurants and outdoor cafés to complement the artists’ workshops, it has a strong appeal to visitors and tourists. The old rail bed on top of the viaduct has been replaced by the Promenade Plantée, a 2.5 mile greenway that extends from Place de la Bastille almost to the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern edge of the city. Much to our surprise, the walk along the Promenade, which is situated at the equivalent of a building’s third floor, was quite pleasant, offering a spectacular view of the city’s rooftops and a quiet stroll unimpeded by vehicular intersections.

Bridges over the Seine

The beauty of each bridge that crosses the Seine is inspiring. Each one has its own unique character, and some are among the world’s best. Whether you are walking over them or passing under them on a cruise of the river, you cannot fail to be impressed by the stunning quality of their designs. All together, they add up to yet another major monument; some are monuments in their own right.

Without these bridges the spine of Paris would be a giant void, and neighborhoods would be isolated from each other. Their success highlights the need to transform the highways along the Seine. The bridges are the great connector; the roads are the great divider.

HALL OF SHAME

Boulevards and Major Intersections

We always thought that a boulevard was a wide, tree-lined street where strolling was a primary activity. Not so! All over Paris these formerly grand avenues have become heavily congested thoroughfares crammed with parked cars. They are a nightmare to walk along, and crossing is a serious adventure. The fear etched in the faces of seniors as they traverse major intersections is profoundly disturbing. In fact, if you were to spend most of your time on the boulevards, you would think Paris’s streets had become parking lots and its sidewalks the domain of motorcycles and scooters. This is a creeping cancer that has profoundly diminished the city’s street life.

L’Etoile

This is one of the most disappointing destinations in Paris. The Arc de Triomphe is spectacular, but the traffic circle around it, L’Etoile, is spectacularly bad: a vast asphalt expanse filled with speeding cars entering and exiting as quickly as possible. Getting across this expanse at street level is out of the question, and the idea of going underground simply to visit an island the size of a postage-stamp surrounded by hectic traffic is not much more appetizing.

Almost every boulevard that emanates from this location is dominated by vehicles, and excessive parking adds to the devastation caused by high-volume traffic. Only Avenue Victor Hugo and Avenue Foch have any interest as places to walk or stroll. As you get further away from the point of origin, each boulevard gradually improves.

The space for vehicles in the circle around L’Arc de Triomphe could be halved–it would actually reduce drivers’ confusion. If this highly recognizable monument could be transformed into a space that belonged to pedestrians as much as cars, it would set a huge precedent for similar spaces in Paris and other cities.

Place de la Concorde

Place de la Concorde is the worst of all public spaces in Paris because it exists solely to move traffic. This square, the biggest in Paris, is 21 acres large. Calling it the Place de la Concorde (“Square of Peace”) is the height of irony. Its history of slaughter, (over 1100 people were beheaded there and another 133 trampled to death), is recalled by the racing traffic that constantly threatens to run over the substantial flow of pedestrians traveling between the Tuileries and the Champs Elysées. Hopes of walking comfortably from the Louvre, through the Tuileries, to the Champs Elysées are immediately dashed upon encountering this asphalt wasteland.

Nowhere can you find so vast an expanse of vehicle-dominated space that is less necessary than Place de la Concorde. The vehicular space could be reduced by 80% and there would still be a smooth flow of traffic. Instead of an enormous void, this could be the central point in all of Paris — a historic destination, a gateway/transition space, and a great event center. From its vantage point there are fabulous vistas of many noteworthy monuments. More than any other single space in Paris, Place de la Concorde could be transformed from a spectacular failure into a sublime, transcendent urban space.

Place de la Madeleine

Approaching Place de la Madeleine, one is so overwhelmed by traffic that the district’s positive assets, including a wonderful flower market, are all shunted into the background.

Once you get to the steps of La Madeleine, a monumental church constructed in the style of a Greek temple, you can behold the sea of traffic coming toward you from Place de la Concorde and up Rue Royale. If vehicular space was decreased by a quarter and the sidewalks were widened into a boulevard like the Passage de Gracia in Barcelona, the whole experience would be dramatically altered. Combine these changes with similar improvements to the streets emanating outward from Madeleine and the suggestions for Place de la Concorde mentioned above, and you’d completely transform the whole district into a walkable, attractive destination. One suggestion: A pedestrian–oriented connection between Place de l’Opéra and Madeleine could become a much-used link between two of the most recognizable monuments in Paris.

Roads along the Seine

If you try to walk along either side of the Seine, you quickly realize how the wide roads that run parallel to the river detract from what should be the city’s chief asset. The Seine could be the setting for the ultimate promenade or boulevard, an actively programmed pedestrian paradise that provides access to the many destinations located near the river. Some of the city’s main attractions, including the Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Musée d’Orsay, would be well-served by a more walkable riverfront. But the way things stand now, only the city’s bridges provide comfortable, direct pedestrian access to the river. Why? Because most of the space along the river itself has been ceded to the automobile.

The roads have become highways within the city: Streetlights phased for high-speed traffic encourage aggressive driving, and vehicles move at too high a speed even for passengers to take in the scenery.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Streetlights could be phased to reduce speed; more pedestrian crosswalks could be added; the number of moving lanes could be reduced to create a better “boulevard effect.”

Most cities now realize the error of bringing highways into the central city, and Paris seems to be coming around too. Each of the last two summers, the city has staged a short, wonderful experiment along the Seine called Paris Plage (Paris Beach). This incredibly innovative program closes off one section of road to create a miniature beach environment by the banks of the river, complete with sand, beach chairs, umbrellas, and games. The same section is also closed on Sundays the rest of the year, but without the intense programming.

These steps are just a small taste of what is really necessary. Taking permanent measures to reclaim the riverfront for pedestrians and transit should be the next bold move for a city that thrives on such gestures to retain its position as the best in the world.

Create Destinations

To function as a successful urban environment, the new community should be made up of destinations, and each destination should offer many things to do. We call this concept the Power of Ten: to be successful, a community should have at least ten great places, and each place should have ten different things to do there. This diversity of places and activities ensures that a community will attract the people who will make it a successful place. PPS will help a development team not only determine what those ten destinations will be, but also assist developing a program of activities and uses for each public space. We firmly believe that the success of public spaces can largely be attributed to the activities, events, recreational uses and social gatherings that take place there, whether planned or spontaneous, and not to a fixed design. Since commercial areas and civic uses will be a critical component in the success of a mixed-use development, we will also advise how retail, restaurants and civic buildings can enhance public spaces and vice versa.

Build Consensus

We strongly recommend involving the community and other stakeholders in the planning process through a Placemaking Workshop. Our Placemaking approach ensures that a developer will be building public spaces that achieve the goals that matter most to a community in the long term. The Placemaking process will also help to put the development team, the City and its citizens on the same page regarding an overall vision for the project and long-term goals for the public spaces. This could break down barriers among interest groups and forge a common approach that will optimize the interests of all parties.

Community Placemaking Workshops

PPS workshops typically involve a presentation introducing the principles of making great public spaces, followed by small breakout groups that explore issues in depth. Often PPS’s Place Performance Evaluation “Game”© is used in this process. The “Place Game” is a short, user-friendly exercise that synthesizes PPS’ observation, interview and analysis techniques for people to use along with their own common sense and intuition for a quick, but productive, on-site assessment. Based on their findings and results from the Game, the groups then work together to develop a vision for what the place could be. This exercise gives participants an opportunity to observe on-site conditions for themselves and understand the dynamics and needs of a particular site within a structured context, allowing them to very quickly see the qualities of the place and it’s potential. By shaping this vision together, the development team, the city and its citizens will be on the same page for the project and the long-term goals for the public spaces. This process breaks down barriers among interest groups and forges a common approach that optimizes the interests of all parties.

Implement the Vision

Working with the designers, we will provide advice and expertise in the layout and design of the public spaces, including parks and plazas, streets, buildings, storefronts, markets and amenities. We will particularly contribute in the following areas of concern:

• Flexibility: Public spaces must respond to the changing needs of a community over time. Their design, therefore, should be flexible and responsive rather than fixed and static. We will help develop a strategy that will allow for the evolution of the public spaces as the development grows and changes.
• Access: Access and linkages also play a major role in creating vibrant public spaces. We will help to optimize pedestrian, transit, bicycle and vehicular mobility and access. We can help in the design of streets and boulevards that enhance the adjacent land uses and increase mobility for all users, not just cars.
• Amenities: PPS has studied the role of seating, lighting, shade and landscaping – in short the amenities that make people feel safe and comfortable in a public space – and we will bring this experience to the table to assist the designers.
• Ground Floors: PPS will help the development team in the design of storefronts, restaurants, public buildings and other ground floor uses that bring vitality to the streets and enhance the success of the retail and other commercial uses.
• Images: PPS has collected more than half a million images of good public spaces around the world that can serve as inspiration and models for the spaces that we help you create. Through our PowerPoint presentations filled with images of these models, we can ensure that the development team and the stakeholders together create and maintain a consistent, shared vision of the product we all would like to see.

Sustain Excellence

PPS will assist the development team and the City in developing an effective management strategy. We have learned from our 30 years of experience that management contributes as much as 80% to the success of a park or main street. Indeed, it is more important than design in ensuring that a space is safe, comfortable and well-used.