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- Paris pushes out from the Île de la Cité in a series of rings, which once were city walls
(the last is the highway that circles the city)
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That is the reason why neighborhoods that grew up before about 1850 are often within strolling distance, and why you can reach most of the famous sites on foot.
Industry brought working-class districts to the north, east, and south – and wealthy districts to the west. This split (the west is rich, the east is poor) characterizes all inland cities in the northern hemisphere, because winds blow pollution east (unless sea winds, "white flight" or other circumstances override that base).
So while museums and imaginative architecture cluster on Paris's western fringe, signs of creative vitality are relatively absent – rents are too high.
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The city's less favored sections on the city's fringe reveal the opposite. The lower-income architecture can be depressing and there are almost no museums. But that is where the new arts have always flourished.
To the north, low rents were a major reason why artists settled in Montmartre (after about 1870). When rents there became too high, many moved south to Montparnasse, and beyond. And now in the east, huge paintings decorate walls, tiny theaters propose two performances each night and in cafés poets read their works, musicians perform and young people chat deep into the night...
Coming next: towns north and east of Paris, of immigrants, crime and hardship, where gentrification has not set in and artists settle.
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- Walks that explore the city's fringe
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 "The Beehive", refuge for immigrant artists |
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Credits: cancan / illustration in "Les Mystères de Paris "by Eugène Sue, 1843; Kiki de Montparnasse / Man Ray ; railway tracks and wall painting / Anne Vanet; other photos / Claude Abron
- Unexpected Paris guided tours