Algemeen·NRC·13 uur geleden

Europe has lots of pleasant cities but too few that matter

Is Paris a big city? It depends on whom you ask. A tourist with only a few days to take in its sights will probably find it dauntingly large. To the French it occasionally feels smothering, the bloated administrative headquarters of an over-centralised country. But after 20-odd centuries of existence, the Ville Lumière has a distinction besides that of top tourist destination or national capital: it is by some distance the European Union’s largest city, a metropolitan standard-bearer for a largely urbanised continent. And seen through that lens it starts looking rather…petite. With one-third the population of Shanghai and less than half the economic output of New York, Paris makes an underwhelming urban flagship for a union of 450m people. Europe has perfected the art of making cityscapes pleasant. Making them mighty engines of economic dynamism is another matter.