History of European city planning: continuities and changes

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History of European city planning: continuities and Changes

Laura Kolbe

The first planned cities in Europe: Greek city states and Ancient Rome

The notion European city is as old Europe. The history of the European City and the history of Europe are to large extent one and the same; there is a large documentation on both aspects. From third millennium BC, the urban settlement has accelerated change by compressing spatial relations, and gave to cultural affairs the rapid pace that distinguishes history from prehistory.1 The list of oldest European cities include some 50-60 places; the oldest of them, like Athens, Argos in Greece, Plovdiv in Bulgaria, Hania in Crete, Lisbon in Portugal and Cadiz in Spain can show a continuity from prehistoric times until today, early 21st century. A first among other is Athens; its urban settlement has been continuously inhabited for past 7000 years. Historical, recorded history exists since second half of 1st millennium BC. The oldest city of Athens can show earliest human presence 11th-7th millennium BC and recorded history begins in 1400 BC.2

The early history of European city is in form of practical settlement, like colonial cities or garrison towns. In ancient times the city could expand only to a certain size, dependent on the ability of a rather limited agricultural district to provide food it. Greek town system expanded from the native shore of Greek culture to the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean. The two hundred years from the middle of 8th century to the middle of 6th century B.C. formed an uninterrupted period of Greek urban expansion.3

The plans for older Greek towns were irregular. The Greek Hip- podamus_(c. 407 BC) has been called the «Father of City Planning» for his design of Miletus (today in Turkey); it was the starting point of a gigantic colonization. Alexander the Great commissioned him to lay out his new city of Alexandria (today Egypt). It became the grandest exemplar of idealized urban planning of the ancient Mediterranean world, and also a showcase of power politics. The city's regularity was facilitated by its level site near a mouth of the Nile. The Hippodamian, or grid plan, was the starting point for following Greek and Roman cities. The cities were centred around squares. Housing blocks were rectangular and the overall city plan regular. In the middle of the plan was the main market place, agora or castle area akropolis. The main cities in Greece could also have temples, theatres, stadion and gymna- sion, as well as other public buildings. Rasmussen, 10-11.

The Mediterranean shores were colonized by the Greeks as a result of colonization. When Romans were to dominate the large parts of Europe, the colonial towns were, above all, garrison towns to guard strategically important crossings in conquered territory -- cities became military encampments, a castrum. These Roman garrison towns form the nucleus of thousands of Europe's larger and smaller cities as we know them of today. The Romans used a consolidate scheme for city planning, developed for military defence and civil convenience. The basic plan consisted of a central forum with city services, surrounded by a compact, rectilinear grid of streets, and wrapped in a wall for defence. To reduce travel times, two diagonal streets crossed the square grid, passing through the central square. A river usually flowed through the city, providing water, transport, and sewage disposal. Vitrivius (1914). De Architectura (The Ten Books on Architecture). Harvard University Press. Rasmussen, 12-13, Benevelo, 3-5. Meurman, 27-28,

The roman influence on in city-building was tremendous. Many European towns, such as Turin, preserve the remains of these schemes, which show the very logical way the Romans designed their cities. They would lay out the streets at right angles, in the form of a square grid. All roads were equal in width and length, except for two, running east- west, and north-south. These wide main streets intersected in the middle to form the centre of the grid, forum. Each square marked by four roads was called an insula, the Roman equivalent of a modern city block. Jones, 24.

The striking feature in most Roman towns was their regularity. The Roman town begun with its wall to protect it from invaders and to mark the city limits. New building types developed, like amphitheatres and circuses, becoming an integral part of Roman city life. Areas outside city limits were left open as farmland. Suburbs developed later to these areas. The texts of the most well known ancient architect Vitruvius (active in the 1st century BC) show that Roman architecture was a broad subject, including the modern fields of architecture, construction management, many types of urban engineering as well as urban planning. Vitruvius asserted in his book De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three qualities offirmitas, utilitas, venus- tas. It must be solid, useful and beautiful. According to Vitruvius, architecture is an imitation of nature. See Vitruvuis on line in English and Latin

The collapse of Roman civilization witnessed a downshifting of Roman urban planning in Europe. Looking at the Eurasian map A.D. 1000, one can see Europe being on periphery in relationship to a wide commercial and imperial system extending from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and Pacific Sea. Cities clustered around the Mediterranean and Black Sea benefitting from the trading routes and transhipment points. Small mercantile towns at the Flanders, northern Germany and France, Russia and Scandinavia (the Vikings) managed to connect themselves with these global trading routes. Tilly & Blockmans, 13.

Beginning the third century AD the security of Roman cities was weakened as the result of the barbarian invasion. Cities in the west acquired still some importance as fortified centres for the protection of civil institutions. In 326 Constantinople was designated the new capital of the Roman Empire because of its exceptional defensive possibilities offered by its geographical setting between the East (Asia) and west (Europe). Enormous fortifications were planned around the city, which served later, throughout the Middle Ages, as a model of a walled city, unassailable, possessing the natural port (the Golden Horn), which blocked the sea traffic in the mouth of Bosporus. Leonardo Bevevolo, The European City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995, 6-7.

The beginnings of civilization and the beginnings of the city are closely connected in UEropenaq history. The classical planning heritage is above all in Greek and Roman Antiquity, where the first cities were also the cities of urban culture and civilization. City and state were identical already in the classical form of the Greekpolis. The particular political and organizational unity of city and country lived on in the Roma Empire, which was also built on the enlarged and multiplied system of the ancient civitas. Many ancient features repeat themselves later in Europe, and the legacy of urban antiquity influenced capital cities planning until mid-20th century victory of modernist concept of the city. See The Capitals of Europe. A Guide to the Sources for the History of their

The cities in the Middle Ages: new market places and planned urban symbols

Urban development in the Middle Ages characteristically focused on a fortress, a fortified abbey, or a (sometimes abandoned) Roman nucleus, occurred rather slowly. Since the new centre was often on high, defensible ground, the city plan took on an organic character, following the irregularities of location and environment.Architecture and Construction, Edited by Agnes Sagvari & Erzsebet C. Harrach, In the 4th century Christians started to build larger edifices for worship. The usable model was the Roman basilica, now turned into a church and located in the city centre or close to the main thoroughfares. The Medieval city on could also see the increase of market function. Towns became vital centres of trade, exchange, commerce and foci for the agricultural surplus. In addition to the wall and the church the market place became symbol of city life. The oldest universities belong to this period (Bologna, Paris, and Cambridge).Munich, 1980 and Goran Therborn, ''Monumental Europe: The National Years.

The Germanic people developed a different kind of urban model outside the Roman Empire's network of military and commercial centres. In the North and East Europe and Russia trading posts were established along the rivers of Rhine, Elbe, Danube and the Northern Sea, as well as along the Russian and Ukrainian water ways. The Germans and Scandinavians understood the idea of a city in form of a castle (Burg), adapting it to the city's name (Augsburg, Hamburg, Marburg, Gothenburg, Helsingborg etc). Also, the urban framework was developed differently: collective residences, workshops and public buildings were built by new crooked streets and new settlements were designed independently of Classical models. Instead they conformed to the necessities of defence, trade and commerce, for which the Roman planning heritage was poorly suited.On the Iconography of European Capital Cities”, in Housing, Theory and Soci ety 2002: 26-47.

Most of the new medieval towns grew from modest, often village origins, and their growth was natural and unhindered by a plan. An “organic” system developed in (often) fortified towns, where streets were irregular, becoming narrow spaces in between high house fronts. Although these towns were densely built, there was sometimes even space for gardens, green spaces and orchards. Great informality of layout was the dominant feature in the European medieval town, usually small in size -- ten thousand was a considerable size of a German town in 15th century. London, with 40 000 people was a very large city. Urbanization was still comparatively modest and sporadic.14

Medieval town plan was, as analyzed later in 1940s by architect Eliel Saarinen, “a truly functional organism”, reflecting the needs of the town's people. The system of roads was fitted for pedestrian purposes and slow movements. Broader areas with public buildings were left open and these developed into squares and plazas of “informal, yet of impressive character”. Saarinen saw a greater logical meaning in the medieval town: it was “functional, practical, familiar and above all, intimately pleasing” to the citizens of the community. It was not, according to Saarinen, “town planning as conceived today, but town- design in the best sens of the word”. 15

The ideal of wide streets and orderly cities was not lost, however. A few medieval cities were admired for their wide thoroughfares and orderly arrangements, but the juridical chaos of medieval cities (where the administration of streets was sometimes passed down through noble families), prevented larger scale urban planning until the Renaissance. Anyhow, the urbanization of Europe between 1050 and 1400 is decisive, as the canvas of many differentiated urban centres was created. It is still on this canvas that the modern urban life and European identity is based.

The most distinctly urban feature of the early modern European city was the outer wall. Access to the city was deliberately made difficult; city walls had a military function to protect the city/town. A few cities, of course, had no wall at all. The most spectacular case was Venice, surrounded by the sea and a group of islands. Many European cities grew during the medieval age, even compared to other part of the world. Between 1274 and 1291 Marco Polo visited China and the immense cities of the Yuan Empire impressed him; although these cities exceeded the measures of European cities, he compared them to equals to Venice and other major European cites. Except for the urban southern band in Europe, state formations were small but dominating, with weak urban development.16

Renaissance and the creation of a new urban planning system

After the 1500, the formation of new centralized states changes this medieval city-state relationship. Gradually, the position of towns changed. Threats from outside invaders diminished and new techniques of cultivation could develop. This combination of relative peace and commercial activities created new basis for urban development in 14th and 15th century. Natural sciences flourished and society took over many aspects of the power of the church, developing its own municipal and autonomous power. A cycle of demographic and productive increase took place in Europe and cities became specialized centres of varied activities. Benevolo, 23-24, Eileen Rasmussen, 21.

As a result of this improvement the relationship to cities transformed. Cities became focus of artistic expression, staring in the 14th century form Italian city states, where commerce, wealth and new bourgeois culture could flourish. The humanist writers and artists started to describe the physical and psychological urban landscape, often revealing the rich understanding of the individuality of the cities. The urban planning became a tool to create more individual dimensions to the city: new elements in cities' regulations were aesthetic considerations, including elements of durability, convenience and visual evenness. Artists became architects and stated to plan both cities and major buildings and monuments. Benevolo, 78-81.

The move to control the urban visible forms had scientific motivation, based on calculation of proportional relationships and then analyzing the measurements and physical characters of the city. From this hierarchy were derived general rules of planning and design. Classical antiquity was studies and ancient monuments copied in order to fulfil new intellectual functions. The fertile combination of the geometric theory and reference to the antiquity were components of the new planning method, first adopted in Florence, Italy. In Florence the planning of the monumental and artistic Dome in the city centre served as a model for Italian and European urban experimentation. Benevolo, 41-42.

With the Renaissance, the idea of a place of power grew up, first in Italy. Piazzas, monumental buildings like palaces and city halls and urban perspectives formed settings according to Renaissance principles. The new aesthetics was recorded by Italian architect and artist Leone Battista Alberti. In Rome Alberti studied its ancient sites, ruins, and objects. His detailed his observations in De Re Aedificatoria (145 2,

Ten Books of Architecture'). It covered a wide range of subjects, from history to town planning, and engineering to the philosophy of beauty. It soon became a major reference for European architects. Alberti, Leon Battista, On the Art of Building in Ten Books. Trans. Leach, N., Rykwert, J., & Tavenor, R. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1988 A new problem of the city was confronted: according to Alberti architecture is a complex operation and includes both planning ('tinea- menta) and construction (structura).

As an artist, Alberti distinguished himself from the ordinary craftsman, educated in workshops. He was a humanist, and part of the rapidly expanding entourage of intellectuals and artisans supported by the courts of the Renaissance princes and lords of the time, as well as by the papal government in Rome/Vatican. The princes had the authority to support individual architectural projects and influence urban planning. Alberti's treatise was a way to mediate between medieval practices and new artistic culture: is would serve as a guide and (make possible) the urban transformations of cities like Rome A good comprehensive article on papal urban planning is Frommel, Christoph L., “Papal policy: The Planning of Rome during the Renaissance”, in Journal of Interdisclipinary History, XVII: 1 (Summer, 1986), 39-63., Urbino, Ferrara The Italian city of Ferrara became in 2008 a UNESCO World Heritage site, based to its renaissance town plan, still preserved to this day. The humanist concept of the `ideal city' came to life here in the neighbourhoods built from 1492 onwards by Biagio Rossetti according to the new principles of perspective. The completion of this project marked the birth of modern town planning and influenced its subsequent development. and Naples.

Changes in the cityscape in 1500-1800 took several forms. The idea of the city as a theatrical scene was adopted. Papal Rome was at the height of its power at the 15 th and 16 th century. It contributed two further features to urban monumentality: one was the straight axial road with its long urban vista, the second was the grandiose piazza in front of St. Peter's church. The hill of Capitolium in Rome from 16the century illustrates how urban centrality, ancient and Christian traditions and modern needs were combined. Michelangelo made his plan in year 1542 for the Capitolium. All elements of power were present, inspired by the central agora in Greek polis. The massive front stairs, a place closed by monumental and symmetric buildings on three sides and a equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius formed basis for this urban place of power. See more Fritz Saxl, ”Das Kapitol im Zeitalter der Renaissance -- Ein Sym

Palma Nuova in Italy (1593) was an early ideal model of the new urban planning, which took on a star-shaped layout adapted from the new star fortress, designed to resist cannon fire. This model was widely imitated, reflecting the enormous cultural power of northern Italy in this age; radial streets extend outward from a defined canter of military, communal or spiritual power. As one author claims, “the Renaissance was hypnotized by one city type which for a century and a half -- from Filarete to Scamozzi -- was impressed upon utopian schemes: this is the star-shaped city».bol der Idee des Imperiums” in Martin Warnke (Hrg.) Politische Achitektur in

The rise of colonial settlements and European capital city planning

During and after the Renaissance, many European rulers became great builders, seeing in the new architecture and urban planning the means of symbolizing their political dominance. A new type of city became the show place for the planning ideas: the planned European capital city. At the same time, during the years 1434 and mid-seventeenth century, the Europeans dominated the world economy and established new settlements in Asia, Africa and America, where the European urban settings were repeated. The great European capitals grew on the basis of centralized royal power during the 17 th and 18th century. It happened also to be the period when great trading empires were born. Many of colonial settlements were fortresses built according to the rules of European military architecture -- the European cities existed separately from the previously existing indigenous ones. This isolation for local civilization continued until the 19th century.Europa vom Mittelalter bis Heute. Kцln, 1984. Hohenberg & Hollen Lees, 151-159.

Many cities became seats of political entities, but without capital status which they maybe gained first later. By the end of Middle Ages the capital city form starts to become visible in Europe.26 A simple state and defence apparatus based on royal palace and courts of law is already developed. The church was the monumental builder of the period. The church also organized rituals of the collectivity (the Mass, royal coronations, funerals, seasonal festivities, remembrances etc.). The townscape was adorned by saintly statues, tombs and votive monuments.27

Only two capital cities in Europe have demonstrated a long, unbroken progress: Paris and London. London assumed permanent capital functions by the 12 th century. It grew over the centuries to the present Greater London. Areas of habitation and business developed around the ancient city. No particular London area has ever been designated as the capital. Paris became the caput regni in the first half of the 14th century. Three urban parts had developed, each with its own character. La Citй was the political part of the city. On the left bank of the Seine were the places of trade and commerce and on the right bank the areas for intellectual and cultural activities.

The process complicated in some cases. Dublin for instance, was from 1660 the seat of Irish provincial parliament, but it became capital of an independent state only since 1922. Berlin became the seat of the Margravate of Brandenburg in I486, but only in 1618 that of Kingdom of Prussia. Moscow is considered to be founded in 1147, but first from the beginning of 14th century it became the capital of the Grand Duchy Moscow. Later, in year 1480, after the end of Tatar power, Moscow became the capital Moscow kingdom and leading religious and economic centre. Buda and Pest may be mentioned as examples of how it was possible to lose and then regain again the role of capital city. The criterion is anyhow the existence of sovereign statehood. market urban colonial settlement

In the Netherlands the medieval court life was developed in Brussels, which later became the capital city of Belgium after the independence in 1830. The old residence of Counts of Holland was Den Haag. It became at the end of the 16th century the seat of central institutions of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (1588-1795), the Prince of Orange, the Stadtholder, and the government of the province of Holland. Den Haag had a perfect location: it was a central historical city and a part of a strong province, which was situated far from the borders. In 1813 Amsterdam became the capital of the Netherlands, when after the French occupation (1795-1813) the Kingdom of the Netherlands was founded. Since that time the Netherlands has had two capital cities: Den Haag (the seat of government) and Amsterdam (cultural and commercial capital, where the Kings of the House of Orange are inaugurated).

In Scandinavian and Baltic cities spiritual leaders were engaged in colonization of lands. In Riga, the capital city of Latvia, the urban legend tells that Bishop Albert von Apeldern founded the city in the

Sean Wilentz (ed.), Rites of Power. Symbolism, Ritual and Politics since the Middle Ages. USA, 1985.

very same place where his predecessor, Bishop Berthold, was killed. He laid the foundation of St. Marys's Church and moved a Cloister to Riga. He invited craftsmen and merchants from other town to Riga, offering them considerable privileges. The churches (The Dome, St. Peter's Church and St. Jacob's Catholic Cathedral, still form a central element in city scape. Andris Kolbergs, The Story of Riga. History of Riga Old Town (Ajag Seta Publishers & Printers Ltd), 1998.

In the second half of the 15th century two new capitals arose: Copenhagen and Moscow. King Erik of Pomerania takes Copenhagen in 1416 from the bishop and the Hanseatic League. Thenceforth the town belongs to the Danish Crown. By the time of Christian IV coronation in 1596 Copenhagen has become rich and powerful. The town is extended, fortification and harbours are modernized. Prague and Buda already showed signs of beginning of a long development. Prague was at the time of Charles IV the seat of the Holy Roman Empire. It sank under the Habsburgs to a provincial capital. Buda lost its role for centuries during the Turkish occupation.

In the 16th century four new royal capitals raised: Madrid, Vienna, Lisbon and Stockholm. The first two became important as the seats of Spanish and of the Central European empires of the Habs- burgs, while Lisbon was chosen as capital by the Portuguese kings, who became wealthy from the Atlantic trade. The Spanish court moved to Madrid in 1560, and the city became soon very dominated by the court and its needs, although an ambulatory life with Escorial as centre outside the city. Stockholm started to develop to capital under the rule of King Gustav Wasa, whose aim was to create a modern centralized state of power.

Geographically the capital cities were situated in a western and in a central European block at the end of the 15 th century. Moscow alone was more remote. The 16 th century widened this western and central bloc, and the 17 th century added to it a further semicircle to the north and east: Stockholm, Berlin and Warsaw. In the transition from Middle Ages to the New Age cities rather than territorial states were often the main sites of both power and wealth, like Florence, Venice, Genoa, Lubbock, Augsburg, Gent, Bruges, Antwerp and Amsterdam clearly show. During this period the modern urban city hall and guild halls became a local and regional place of power, as the development in the Low-Countries, North Italy and North Germany indicate. Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, London, 1976.

The royal townscape consisted of hierarchy, the centrepiece being royal palace, or places in plural, at least a winter and a summer palace. A huge, well-sculptured park became an important feature of a truly royal palace, as well as a royal square, usually with a statue. The rituals played an important part in the life of royal capitals. They were concentrated around military parades, royal coronations, marriages, coronations and funerals, public ceremonies and popular festivities. From Absolutist times comes urban Cours (Italian corso), a long tree lined avenue for elegant promenades, which later was followed among others, the Champs Elysees and the Unter den Linden.

In the 16 th and 17 th centuries the capital cities had to cover legally the path from the closed medieval town to the subordinate city of modern times. The unifying influence was powerful also in town planning and architecture. Where governments acted as planners of capital cities, the classical form was preferred. It reflected the ordered system of power. The whole capital city was integrated with comprehensive classical type (usually Baroque) planning scheme and architecture during the 18 th century. Monarchy and aristocracy set their imprint upon the city. Baroque architecture sought to give the first expression to the first form of modern state, the all power-full absolutist monarchy.

Royal absolutism and the development of capital city planning occurred simultaneously. Absolutism demanded perfect settings. In contrast with the capital of the absolutist and mercantilist regimes, the free Dutch cities managed to combine medieval administrative procedures and modem visual planning. During the building boom of the late 16th and early 17 the centuries, European sovereigns sponsored numerous projects that brought symmetry and regularity to the large cities:

the royal places of Henri IV in Paris (1605-1612)

the Plaza Mayor in Madrid (1617)

the rebuilding of Lerma (1604)

the Prince's residence at Charleville (1610)

expansion of Turin (1610)

the plan for Copenhagen (1629)

the plans for Gothenburg (1620) and Stockholm (1629)

In Paris, the planning of the Place Royale into the Place des Vosges by Henri IV in early years of 17 th century is a true example of the first European planned square (140 m x 140 m) and it embodied the first European program of royal city planning. The Place des Vosges, inaugurated in 1612 with a grand carrousel to celebrate the wedding of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, became the prototype of all the future residential squares of European cities. The novelty in the square was that the house fronts were built to the same design of red brick with strips of stone quoins over vaulted arcades that stand on square pillars. See more on the square in Hilary Ballon, The Paris of Henry IV: Architecture and Urbanism, 1994 The Place des Vosges initiated succeeding developments of Paris that created a suitable urban background for the French aristocracy.

In Madrid the Plaza Mayor was built during the Habsburg period and is a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain. It is located only a few Spanish blocks away from another famous plaza, the Puerta del Sol. The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape, measuring 129 by 94 metres, and is surrounded by three-story residential buildings having 237 breathtaking balconies facing the Plaza. It has a total of nine entrance- ways. The Casa de la Panadena. serving municipal and cultural functions, dominates the Plaza Mayor. The origins of the Plaza go back to 1576 when Philip I asked Tuan de Herrera, a renowned Classical architect, to discuss a plan to remodel the busy and chaotic area of the old Plaza delArrabal. Juan de Herrera was the artist who designed the first project in 1560 to remodel the old Plaza del Arrabal but construction did not start until 1617, during PhilipJITs reign. The king asked Juan Gomez de Mora to continue with the project, and he finished the porticoes in 1619. Nevertheless, the Plaza Mayor as we know it today is the work of the architect Juan de Villanueva who was given the glorious, albeit difficult task of its reconstruction in 1790 after a series of enormous fires. Giambologna`s equestrian statue of Philip III dates to 1616, but it was not placed in the centre of the square until 1848.

The political dominion and the economic one grew parallel in many European capital cities. Central power and trading functions demanded legal codification and enforcement, engendering to a set of special functions -- universities, courts of law, trading houses and bourses, offices etc. Further, because these cities were centres of culture and consumption, local demand gave rise to activities like schools, theatres, club houses, art and music halls, libraries, museums, newspaper and book publishing. These functions tend to assist each other.

Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states. The town surrounding the Palace became the seat of two of the highest courts in Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) whose decisions have the force of a law in many cases, and the Federal Court of Justice of Germany (Bundesgericht- shof), the highest court of appeals in matters of civil law and criminal law. It therefore considers itself the home of justice in Germany, a role taken over from Leipzig after 1945.12121

Due to similarities to the United States capital city, it has been speculated that Karlsruhe was a model city for the cityscape of Washington, D.C.141 Both cities have a center -- in Karlsruhe the palace and in D.C. the Capitol Building -- from which the streets radiate outward. L'Enfant, Washington's city planner, had been given the plans of Karlsruhe (among numerous other European cities) as an inspiration.151 A5 = «Thomas Jefferson to George Washington (April 10, 1791)». The Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series, 8. The Constitutional Sources Project. Retrieved 2010-07-16.

Following the 1695 bombardment of Brussels by the French troops of King Louis XIV. in which a large part of the city center was destroyed, Governor Max Emanuel proposed using the reconstruction to completely change the layout and architectural style of the city. His plan was to transform the medieval city into a city of the new baroque style, modelled on Turin, with a logical street layout, with straight avenues offering long, uninterrupted views flanked by buildings of a uniform size. This plan was opposed by residents and municipal authorities, who wanted a rapid reconstruction, did not have the resources for grandiose proposals, and resented what they considered the imposition of a new, foreign, architectural style. In the actual reconstruction, the general layout of the city was conserved, but it was not identical to that before the cataclysm. Despite the necessity of rapid reconstruction and the lack of financial means, authorities did take several measures to improve traffic flow, sanitation, and the aesthetics of the city. Many streets were made as wide as possible to improve traffic flow.During the Second French Empire, Haussmann transformed the medieval city of Paris into a modern capital, with long, straight, wide boulevards. The planning was influenced by many factors, not the least of which was the city's history of street revolutions.

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