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Post by lola on Nov 23, 2014 21:51:01 GMT
We had friends over for dessert last night who enjoy dashing through France on bicycles. Cliff, the practical one, says he always wonders how Paris paid for the massive renovation under the Baron Haussmann. His wife says he always asks this question, wherever he goes, and has not heard a satisfactory answer.
Not having read the wickipedia.com article on the subject I was not prepared to offer a comment, though my short answer would have been "taxes."
Today, by magic of internet, I know more about Napoleon III than ever before. Apparently he was passionate about political economics, and studied the subject during exile and in prison. Per that article: "He wanted the government to play an active, not a passive role in the economy; in 1839, he had written: “Government is not a necessary evil, as some people claim; it is instead the benevolent motor for the whole social organism.'" and advocated the government's building infrastructure to promote economic growth.
Later, though, after he declared himself Emperor to bypass the pesky presidential term limits, he was able to annex enough land, including Kerouac's hillside, to double Paris's size and tax base.
Still it had to be expensive and disruptive, but they put up the money for the greater good and the benefit of future tourists.
Discuss?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2014 22:49:10 GMT
Indeed, one of the main reasons for annexing the areas north of those early city limits (Montmartre, La Chapelle, etc.) was because one of the main reasons that they had developed was because all of the cabarets and bars were established there to avoid the higher Parisian taxes on alcoholic beverages. Frankly, I have no idea how big the difference in taxes was, but the advantage was erased when all of the outer arrondissements were created.
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Post by lagatta on Nov 23, 2014 23:31:56 GMT
Probably a combination of that sort of taxation and the taxes accruing due to real-estate speculation? Will have to look into that further...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2014 6:58:34 GMT
Reading up on this, I saw that Haussmann spent 17 years on his project of urban renewal and that he spent 2.5 billion francs (with a budget of 1.1 billion). The money came from the sale of goverment bonds.
As he always insisted, the economic growth caused by the redesigned streets was enormous. There were more than 5 million visitors to the World's Fair of 1855 and all of the new boulevards were as big a draw as the fair itself, since the international press had praised the result so highly -- no country in the world had ever dared to rip its own capital to pieces to change everything, but it's very true that when you stand somewhere like Place de l'Opéra now, it is hard to imagine that Paris could have ever been any other way.
Of course in the 20th century, both Joseph Stalin and Nicolae Ceaușescu were very big fans of construction but not so good about urban planning and design.
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Post by bjd on Nov 24, 2014 7:42:25 GMT
That quote from Napoleon III should give today's US Republicans something to think about!
I would think other reasons for the development of Paris at the time would also be geographical extension (they kept expanding in circles as outer defensive walls came down) as the population increased by natural growth and influx from outside, and also a way of encouraging growth and development to bring people together after the Franco-Prussian war and the commune.
There are investments that pay off in the long term, such as infrastructure. At the time they were perhaps not just looking at the next election.
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Post by mossie on Nov 24, 2014 8:10:25 GMT
It was the annexation of the outer arrondissements and the imposition of taxes on their inhabitants which gave rise to the Commune and the bloody little civil war which that provked.
Not to mention that Lenin was greatly influenced by the Commune, and although they called themselves Communards, Lenin's followers were Communists with the results we all see today. Lenin had a Communard flag buried with him.
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Post by lola on Nov 24, 2014 15:42:03 GMT
Thanks, all, for your thoughtful comments! I'll forward this to Cliff.
One big advantage of having an emperor is you don't have to worry about the next election when making decisions. Just the next revolution.
(Now I have to go look up the Commune, about which I'm equally ignorant.)
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