Le Grand Pari

Some friends of the oldest son came over last night and one of them told me about a new project currently underway within the city.

So I did a little research on Le Grand Pari and this is what I found...

Prez Sarkozy wants to change Paris, some say for the worst. At first glance his plans sound very appeasing to the general public and in the right direction for this modern, technology-driven era, i.e. more parks, a monorail going through the city, expansion of the city outward into the surrounding towns/suburbs thus creating small industry niches. Basically an economical re-vamping and social makeover of the city, which would entail combining the grandiose towns of Versailles and Vincennes, the more modest, simple towns, and then the lower SES towns such as Clichy-sous-bois. 10 architects from all over the world have been commissioned to submit proposals for the project. For all you engineering/architect/CAD lovers out there, you can check out their models here - some are pretty cool

Definitely an ambitious endeavor that has attracted a swarm of controversy.



Side note: I was reading some news about back home - namely Cville - and I came across a story about trapping a gray fox at Lambeth Field and subsequently killing it because it may have been the same rabid one that attacked 2 people. So of course the SPCA, who did the euthanizing because the only way to test for rabies is to examine the brain, is getting flak from pro-PETA-ers questioning their values, morals, blah blah blah….anyway among the many reader comments my favs were definitely:

"This is deplorable! Why do humans think it is okay to just exterminate anything that may or may not be a danger to people, or because there are “too many” of them?! How about we exterminate some people who are just taking up space?! And for Charlottesville to be so progressive and “green” - what the world?!"

"Why don’t you just interrogate it and find out where the sweater is [apparently it tore off someone's sweater] and then let it go? That should be punishment enough for his wild time on campus"

Haha classic. AND can someone PLEASE explain to me how this this was even created, let alone selling for $17?!!? REALLY?!