Haussmann and the new Paris

According to Victor Hugo, in 1848, "Paris, is an immense workshop of putrefaction, in which misery, plague, and diseases work in concert, where neither the air nor the sun penetrate. Paris is a bad place where plants dwindle and perish, where out of seven grandchildren, four die in the year. ". It is this Paris that Haussmann will try to change.

From the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century, the French population experienced unprecedented growth. In Paris, the people crowded into more and more unhealthy neighborhoods. However, it is under Napoleon III that the situation reaches its most critical level. Indeed, the Parisian housing conditions have reached a deplorable situation. In some neighborhoods, the population density can reach up to one hundred thousand people per square kilometer in very poor hygiene conditions. The population from 1831 to 1856 was multiplied by 1.5. The population rose from 80,000 in 1831 to almost 120,000 in 1856, an increase of 150 per cent. It is in this context that Napoleon III undertook to make Paris a city as prestigious as London from where he returned from a landmark trip. To achieve this, he appointed George Eugène Haussmann as Prefect of the Seine on June 23, 1853. The main idea was to improve the circulation of air and of men. The project is named: "Paris embellished, Paris enlarged, Paris sanitized". However, in order to achieve this objective, Haussmann must meet many challenges. We must try to relocate poor families. The project must allow a simpler movement of troops within the city but it must also allow the public authorities to control Paris which is experiencing increasing popular uprisings. This work will therefore enable us to respond to economic, political, social and health issues. This urban planning project is a colossal project that will change the face of Paris forever.
Is this a quote? If not, why isn’t it told in past tense?

I. The Transformations of Paris

Haussmann realizes or implements the projects as required. As far as mobility is concerned, it creates what is called "the great crossroads", the major axes that cut Paris from east to west and from north to south with the boulevards of Strasbourg, Sevastopol, St Michel and the Rue de Rivoli. It completes these great avenues by a crown of boulevards passing through the great squares of Paris such as Boulevard Voltaire and St Germain. He built bridges to facilitate traffic between the banks like the bridges of Alma and Solferino. These new avenues lead to the renovated stations, or recently constructed as the Gare de Lyon (1855) and the Gare du Nord (1865), the aim being that these stations are the new gates of the city. On the sanitary level, Haussmann is modernizing Paris by designing a sewage network that follows the layout of the main streets for drinking water and sewerage and another network that allows gas lighting. On the social level, he conceived the Opéra Garnier which is a real meeting place for Parisian society. It also brings together traders under the major markets for the market and develops a slaughterhouse in the suburbs. Then, seduced by the parks of London, the emperor entrusted to an engineer Jean Charles Alphand the creation of several parks, woods and gardens. Henceforth, Paris had the parks of Luxembourg, Monceau, Montsouris, the Chaumont buttes, and the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes, which enabled the inhabitants to relax.

II. An ambitious and costly project

However, this project was made possible only by certain important factors or persons who enabled Haussmann to carry out his project despite the cost of the latter. In fact, the work was made possible by the ambition of Napoleon III: the new emperor had a strong power, capable of overriding all forms of resistance. The work being very expensive, the city of Paris must appeal to two colossal borrowings. Napoleon III therefore subscribed to a loan of 250 million francs in 1865 and another in 1869, amounting to 260 million francs. Under the second empire, the banks developed, making possible the borrowings. The banks then became the pillars of the French economic system. Of course, the works are supervised by the State and the caisse des Travaux de Paris. Haussmann also benefits from a well-developed legislative and regulatory framework, which greatly facilitates the work and ensures the homogeneity of the new arteries giving way to this new map of the city. The decree of March 26, 1852, adopted one year before the assignment of Haussmann, will help the architect of this project in these works. The parcels not used by the public road remain the property of the city which makes it possible to shave a large part of Paris and keep it clean as this law invites the owners to clean their facades regularly. The annexation of the nearby suburbs is made possible by the Act of 1 June 1859

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