Postcard from Paris, France: Linear parks rejuvenate neighborhoods

playing boule along ourcq canal in paris
A vintage French postage stamp depicting a man playing jeu de boules, with spectators in the background. The stamp features blue illustrations and text stating 'JEU DE BOULES' and 'RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE'.

Above: Adjudicating outcome of an afternoon boules game along the Ourcq Canal.

Paris had to be more than a manicured museum preserved for the affluent beneath the Eiffel Tower and the Pantheon’s dome.”

“A City Reinvented: Paris Is Now Greater Paris,” Roger Cohen, New York Times, August 31, 2025

When we returned this past spring, our prior trip to Paris had been forty years earlier. Obviously, things have changed. We found ourselves afoot exploring areas of the city regarded as neither appealing nor safe for boulevardiers back then, areas such as an abandoned railroad line that runs across the 12th Arrondissement from the Bastille to the Bois de Boulogne.

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