Paris isn’t dead yet

Part urban chronicle, part popular history and part critique of current policy, Cole Stangler takes us on a poignant journey through the ‘other’ Paris. Cole Stangler’s vivid portraits of Parisians only just scraping by, despite hard work and resourcefulness, stand as a firm rebuttal to the city of cliches so often depicted in popular culture. In this urgent book, he investigates the past, present and likely future of Paris through the lens of class struggle, giving voice to the ordinary residents gradually being priced out of their homes and highlighting the role of immigrants in shaping the city’s cosmopolitan character. Stangler explores lives and neighbourhoods in granular detail, connecting them to local legacies of open confrontation (the Parisian underclass has always been ready to take to the barricades), and to the larger structural trends reshaping cities around the world. Drawing much-needed attention to the redistributive potential of Grand Paris, a plan to better integrate the city centre with its beleaguered suburbs, he asks what, finally, are cities good for? ‘Paris Isn’t Dead Yet’ presents its subject as a complex case study for the next wave of urbanisation.