Paris is known for the non-uniformity of its map. The arrangement of streets, alleys, squares, boulevards, and avenues is a result of a superimposition of one street plan upon an earlier street plan.
As with the birth of most agglomerations, a first network of streets was formed by the built-up areas around paths, roadways and places of trade, and a second formed when land surrounding these was divided and sold for building. In the French tradition, a plot of land was usually divided in a series of long and narrow parallel plots extending to both sides of a central lateral strip reserved for a passage across it. Very rarely was a street planned in advance.
A few exceptions aside, Paris' growth remained true to this schema (for over eight hundred years) until the mid-19th century city renovations by Baron Haussmann involved the demolition of entire quarters to make way for a network of new boulevards and avenues that make much of Paris today. Many of the city's winding and narrow streets still remain, but one must search through the quarters behind the avenues to find them.
The 1970s city-limit-hugging circular Périphérique expressway was the first real change since the above, as were narrow expressways along the quays of the Seine river and a few inner-city underground passages. It is not the map of the streets that is changing most these days, but the streets themselves: a recent movement towards prioritising public transportation systems and eliminating "through-city" traffic has created barricaded bus/taxi/cyclist alleys, narrowing the passages reserved for automobiles and delivery vehicles. Although reducing traffic flow within the city itself, this traffic is often redistributed to the Capital's gateway thoroughfares.
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