City planning for Paris

Jérôme Dubus, Parisian town councillor and vice president of the municipal UMP faction, comments in Les Echos Nikolas Sarkozy's urban planning scheme for Paris, where a number of high rises are to go up in the city centre: "This new will to build has emerged just when the president of the republic wants to step up construction in greater Paris. The plan is to fill the huge void in this area which has been manifest since 2001. However what the new urban planning really reflects is the cautious approach of a capital that has withdrawn into itself. ... This plan offers little room for the initiative or creativity of urban designers. ... Paris is a dense city, and this has led it to equip itself with one of the best transport networks in the world and a range of services that constitute an unbeatable asset in global competition. The concentration of human and economic potential has also made Paris a major world capital. But the loss of 270,000 jobs in the last 15 years and a 15 percent rise in the number of people looking for flats ... make a new and workable urban model for Paris a matter of utmost urgency."

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