Paris is known as “the capital of the 19th century”, and day to day, it feels like it. I live on a 19th-century Haussmannian street. I travel around on a late 19th-century invention, a bicycle with two equally sized wheels, when I’m not using the prehistoric technology of walking. Living here has helped me realise: the 20th century was rubbish for cities. All over Europe, in particular, cities are now peeling off the century’s imprint like a bad wallpapering job in ways that go beyond pushing out cars. The post-pandemic urban ideal is a cleaned-up version of the 19th-century city with 21st-century enhancements.
Early last century, cities made some fateful bad choices. Offered two new rival vehicles, they chose the gasoline-powered car over the clean, cheap and compact safety bicycle. Then in 1903, the first reinforced concrete skyscraper went up in Cincinnati, Ohio.
