User talk:Green Giant/sandbox/Paris

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[edit] Physical Description

Well, this may not be the definitive title for this but you get the idea. The reason I created this section is that, with all this article's details and statistics, a reader doesn't know where anything is in the city, nor what the city looks like. This is only a first draft, and will be elaborated. I hope that we can 'merge in' some of the info from other subsections, namely 'area' (and 'parks and gardens'? Districts?), so that we can eliminate them altogether. What do you think? THEPROMENADER 11:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The physical description makes reference to a historical axis which would cross the city from Easbound to Westbound. Unfortunately, they can be a misunderstanding in here as what is commonly called the historical axis is the perspective starting at the Louvre and ending at La Défense.

As for the former "historical axis" you've talked about, I guess it's a reference to the rue Saint-Jacques, which used to be Lutetia's Cardo (main street) at the Ancient Roman times. However, Rue Saint-Jacques spreads only on the Left Bank. Today, the two largest avenues making a North/South axis are the Boulevard de Sébastopol (right bank) and the Boulevard Saint-Michel (left bank), both dug according to Haussmann's plan in the 19th century.

As for Paris having few skyscrapers, actually, this is not totally true. Indeed once compared with North America or Asian cities, it has few, but Paris remains one of the cities in Europe hosting the most skyscrapers. Those skyscrapers are mainly located in three areas : Paris-La Défense business district, the 13th arrondissement Chinatown, and the Front de Seine near the Eiffel Tower. You can see a list of those skyscrapers in that article : Tallest buildings and structures in Paris.

On a sidenote which have no reason to be mentionned in the article, La Défense has projected to build half a dozen more skyscrapers between 200m and more than 400m in the frame of its "Paris 2015" project. Here is a press release and a video about that project. I recall once again that this has no reason at all to be mentionned in Paris main article and that I just told you so for information purpose. Metropolitan 12:01 22 March 2006 (CET).

Thanks for the input. Actually in the article I wasn't aiming for a description of the historical axis - this would be better suited for the historical section - but rather Paris' north-south and west-east arteries. The modern version of these are but larger echoes of former arteries - rue Saint-Jacques/rue Saint-Denis for example - yet I tried to state this simply as I could. I hope a reader gets the idea. Ach, but perhaps I'd best not use the term 'historical axis' then - first artery? I get the point though.

As for 'skyscrapers' - one must differentiate between these and 'towers'. When one imagines skyscrapers, one imagines New York or Los Angeles, and Paris has litttle to compare with either. La Defense's Winterthur buliding, tall as it is, is about knee-high to some of these. I must stress again that I said "in Paris" - La Defense, although argueably attached to it, isn't in it, although this may change one day. This sort of ambiguity should be avoided, especially in an article's namespace. Do you see me? THEPROMENADER 15:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay there's no problem, however I believe it would certainly better to talk about "main axis" as "historical axis" is already used in a very specific case. This way it would be clearer. As for skyscrapers, well Paris has still 14 towers above 500ft/150m and more than 100 above 300ft/90m. That's rather unusual for a European city. After all, Paris has more skyscrapers than cities such as Montreal, Vancouver, or Auckland which are still seen as "skyscrapers" cities. It has nearly as many as Seattle or San Francisco. If there would be no skyscrapers at all like in a city such as Rome, I could accept that mention... but in the case of Paris it could lead people to have a visual image of a flat city which wouldn't be true. Metropolitan 18:39 22 March 2006 (CET).

I had chopped the 'historical axis' even before you posted : ) Are all those towers in Paris, or are they in the Paris region? Careful... they're not one and the same yet. I'll check that skyscrapers article for this. THEPROMENADER 22:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)