Paris thoughts

I'm leaving today for five days in Roussillon, in southwestern France, and then a (much needed) week in Paris. Rain is predicted in the capital, but that will hardly stop my ramblings in my second-favorite city on Earth.

My second-favorite city.

This reminds me that when visitors comment on the admittedly rampant ugliness of Los Angeles, my first response is inevitably to point out that Los Angeles is just 231 years old—an infant still in diapers, sometimes badly stained.

Architectural democracy in action.

Paris, which most certainly consider one of the world's most beautiful cities, is an order of magnitude older, having been around for nearly 2,300 years and counting.

"Come back when Los Angeles is 2,300 years old and see how beautiful it will be," I tell the doubters.

Of course, what we know as Paris today was very largely the result of the draconian rebuilding of the city by Georges-Eugène Haussmann in the mid-19th century, very late, relatively speaking, in the the city's history.

Paris sous la pluie.

Perhaps what Los Angeles needs is a visionary of the caliber of Haussmann who will rake away all the mini-malls and dingbats, widen (and repave!) the boulevards, and bring some sense of order into the urban free-for-all that is L.A.

Is there a Baron Haussmann in our future?

If only it were this easy.

See you in two weeks.