A couple of years ago, Paris Update published a rant I wrote called “The Uglification of Paris” and sent it to the mayor’s office. There was no direct response, but surprisingly – and probably coincidentally – a few things did … Read More
In principle, I am a supporter of Paris’s current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who is up for re-election next year, but I strongly resent the way she has allowed the introduction of so many ugly elements into the streets of … Read More
Is it just me, or is the French capital now the jolliest of the big three? By that I mean Western civilization’s splendid PaLoNY: Paris, London, New York. The trio of major metropoles has long hewed to type: New York, … Read More
I am no fan of the company JCDecaux, which has littered Paris with advertising panels, but the city of Paris seems to have made a bad decision when it replaced Decaux’s subsidiary Cyclocity as the concessionaire for the Vélib’ bike-sharing … Read More
In the 20 years that I have owned a little studio apartment in Paris’s ninth arrondissement, the district has changed considerably. Almost every restaurant has been replaced at successive intervals by other restaurants; fancy gift shops have been transformed into Italian … Read More
Why do we choose to live in Paris when it ranks high on cost of living and low on quality of life? Mercer’s 2018 Quality of Living Ranking, published in March, ranked Vienna first (for the ninth year in a … Read More
