Colin Jones, Paris: A History

Haussmannism and  the City  of Modernity
1851-89

Strategies that Made Haussmannization Possible

Even  before  Haussmann was appointed Prefect, an imperial Commission for the Embellishment of Paris had  already begun  to devise  plans  for the renovation  of  the city which in many  details prefigured  Haussmann's programme. Interior Minister Persigny was also developing similar ideas  at  the same  time. These  precursors may have had  a scintillating vision of the modern city, however, but  they lacked the political, financial and  administrative clout  to bring that  vision to life.  This  is what Napoleon and Haussmann were  able  to provide -- albeit only from 1853 onwards. The plans of renewal which  Napoleon tried out  when  he was still only president of the Republic, for example, had  failed  to make  much  impact. Haussmann's  predecessor as Prefect  of the Seine, Jean-Jacques Berger, regarded Napoleon's plans  as overcasted: 'I'm certainly not  going  to  be involved,' he noted  privately, in  the city's  financial  ruin.  He  proved  a perennial  wet   blanket.  Napoleon's seizure of Paris by coup d'etat in December 1851, however, and then his declaration of the  Empire in November 1852,  swung the balance of power his way. In Haussmann , whom he put in Berger's place in June 1853, he found an  energetic and  committed political fixer, who was altogether more  receptive to hi s ideas, and  who  was  more than  happy to strong-arm the municipal council -- whose members he personally appointed anyway -- into  assenting to his  master's wishes.

Haussmann's streets  and  boulevards  displayed  the same  kind  of insouciant authoritarianism which  he showed  in  most  of  his political  dealings. This 'demolition artist',  as he  jocularly  called  himself, shunned the older piecemeal  methods  of  improvement  through  the  alignment  of  existing streets, and deployed the method  pioneered  by Rambuteau, which consisted of driving new streets through existing  neighbourhoods. It was,  he opined, 'easier to cut though a pie's inside than  to break into the crust'. This urban butchery  was  facilitated   moreover by regulations introduced in 1848  and confirmed  in  1852 which  strengthened the  hand  of  the  Prefect  in street­building projects. The  1841  regulations, originally  designed to facilitate  railway  development, and  which  Rambuteau  had   used  in  his  urbanization project, permitted  the expropriation of properties for purposes  of public utility where  the property was actually  on the track  of a new street.  The  1852 decree stated  that  property adjacent  to the street and  affected  by the plans should  also  be subject  to compulsory purchase  and  made  available  for development.  This allowed chaotically complicated street-  and  house-plans to be almost  surgically  replaced by rectilinear  roadways. It also  permitted  the construction of new buildings  in replacement  of what was torn  down.  Characteristically, the operations became self-financing, for the usually insanitary old buildings  were sold at low cost to urban  developers  who  replaced  them with attractive prestige  properties which could  be sold or else rented  ou r as homes  and   businesses.  This  allowed   the  accumulation  of  capital,   which could  be invested in further speculative  building,  a tendency  which was also favoured  by the emergence of a modern  banking  sector  in these years.

For those involved in this whirligig of property development, Haussmann appeared  to have invented  a kind of virtuous  circle which conjoined  private and  public  energies  in a way  which  built  new  homes,  provided  mass  employment  (one-fifth of the Parisian  workforce was in the construction trades at the height of Haussmann's development), made  a signal contribution to public health,  beautified  the city and supplied the financial  bourgeoisie  with fat profits  to boot. The  notion  of the 'highest calling' which  Napoleon and Haussmann had for a modernized Paris was,  moreover, grounded in an optimistic calculus which  assumed  that  urban  growth  would  be self-financing in  the  long  term.  Many  financial  pessimists -- such as  ex-Prefect  Berger -­ argued  that  the city simply could  not afford  the scale of new building which Haussmann wanted.  Yet this  was steady-state financing.  Haussmann built into his calculations the assumption that 'productive expenditure' -- in effect, debit  financing -- would  make  the city  bigger, richer and  more attractive.  By developing  Paris as a world  city whose  inhabitants had more  in their  pockets, and which tourists would  want  to visit in droves, it would  be all the easier to siphon  off part  of this surplus wealth, notably in the form of indirect taxes  on  consumption (the  major  item  in the  city's  budget).  This  developmental  logic meant  that  the government renovated Paris on the cheap,  comparatively  speaking: the state  treasury  bore  only  around   10 per cent of the total costs of the public works  undertaken in these two decades.  Virtually all the  rest of the money  came  from  loans,  permission   for  which  Haussmann was able  to force through  the municipal  authorities by a combination of bullying, finagling and  optimistic accounting.