Cities in Review

Returning home from a tour of Britain and the U.S., the government-appointed Prefect of Paris, Maurice Doublet, produced his ratings of some of the cities he had visited. At the top of the list was San Francisco: "It reminds me most of Paris, but there's more. There's a very agreeable mixture of new big buildings and the old." Second was London--good mass transportation and parking. The third choice, Chicago, was a pleasant surprise because "they've respected nature in many areas of the city and there are good vistas."

Los Angeles came in fourth; Doublet said that he had found less smog there than he had expected. In last place, the Paris administrator listed New York. Central Park was joli, he agreed, but "if they brought New York's subway to Paris, I assure you there would be a revolution." Later Doublet's office issued a statement denying that he had cast aspersions on New York.

The particular tribe of chauvinists that New York has always bred could only observe that if relative cleanliness and efficiency were Doublet's criteria, then perhaps he would prefer Salina, Kans., or Salt Lake City. Still, if it is true that the world's great cities--ancient Rome or 19th century London, for example--have always been paradoxically noisome and even dangerous places, many New Yorkers could do with a little less greatness.

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