About this book:

*Paris: Layers of a City* provides a comprehensive spatial and social history of the French capital, tracing its evolution from a dense medieval matrix of parishes and markets to a modern, data-driven metropolis. The book examines how successive regimes—from Bourbon monarchs and Napoleonic revolutionaries to Baron Haussmann and postwar technocrats—used urban planning as a tool for both functional improvement and social control. By analyzing maps, demographic data, and architectural archives, the narrative reveals how the city’s physical transformations, such as the carving of grand boulevards and the construction of the Périphérique, simultaneously facilitated modernization and deepened class segregations.

A central theme of the work is the tension between the historic urban core and the expanding periphery. The book details the mid-19th-century displacement of the working class during Haussmannization, a process that established a lasting geographic divide between the affluent west and the industrial east. This trajectory continued through the 20th century with the rise of the *banlieues*, the construction of massive *grands ensembles* during the *Trente Glorieuses*, and the eventual social and political isolation of immigrant communities. These spatial inequities are framed as the backdrop for historical ruptures like the 1871 Commune, the 1968 protests, and the 2005 suburban uprisings.

The later chapters focus on the late 20th and early 21st centuries, highlighting the era of "Grand Travaux" cultural flagships, the financialization of real estate, and the "museumization" of the city center through tourism. The narrative concludes by exploring contemporary efforts to reclaim public space through pedestrianization and cycling, the massive regional integration promised by the Grand Paris Express, and the urgent shift toward climate resilience. Ultimately, the book presents Paris as a complex palimpsest where every layer of stone and digital data reflects a choice about how a global capital governs itself and imagines its future.

What You'll Find Inside:

• The book traces how Paris’s medieval parish, market, and wall structure created a dense, mixed‑use urban fabric that persisted through later transformations.
• Haussmann’s boulevards modernized circulation and sanitation but displaced working‑class residents, concentrating wealth in the west and pushing poverty eastward.
• From royal squares to Belle Époque department stores and 20th‑century grands ensembles, public space has been continually reshaped to reflect shifting ideas of leisure, order, and social control.
• Suburban expansion driven by rail, industry, and automobile infrastructure entrenched a spatial divide between the historic core and the peripheral banlieues, a divide that still fuels inequality and contestation.
• Contemporary challenges—climate risk, tourism pressure, and digital governance—are addressed through new mobility policies, green infrastructure, and data‑driven planning that seek to reintegrate the city and its suburbs.

Who's It For:

This book will appeal to urban historians, geography and sociology students, city planners, and general readers interested in the social and spatial evolution of major cities. It is especially valuable for those who want to see how historical maps, demographic data, and planning archives can be used to uncover the interplay between urban form, class relations, and public space. Professionals working on contemporary urban challenges—such as housing affordability, transportation equity, and climate resilience—will find relevant precedents and analytical frameworks in Paris’s layered history.