Quote Originally Posted by dtowncitylover View Post
Dearborn is far from miserable, in my opinion. However he probably didn't do the research on our suburbs.

The suburbs for Paris are miserable. Being "banlieusard", or suburbanite in French, has a very different connotation. Parisian suburbanites tend to be poorer and there are many immigrants, Africans and Arabs from the former French colonies. I'm pretty sure that's they way it is in London too.
When Baron Hausmann built the wide boulevards in Paris in the 1850s and 1860s, almost half of medieval Paris was destroyed in the process. Much of the city's poor folks were displaced to the suburbs, while the more well to do could afford to stay in Paris. This has been that way ever since.

Haussmann's wide boulevards were "supposedly" for better sanitation and living conditions... but the real reason was to prevent the unruly Parisians from "manning the barricades" [[by making the streets too wide), and for the authorities to have clear straight cannon shots, when trouble did arise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussma...ation_of_Paris

As already mentioned, the outer arrondissment's [[districts) of Paris are today where the poor and immigants live.