The population density in these neighbourhoods was extremely high, compared with the rest of Paris in the neighbourhood of Champs-Élysées, population density was estimated at 5,380 per square kilometre (22 per acre) in the neighbourhoods of Arcis and Saint-Avoye, located in the present Third Arrondissement, there was one inhabitant for every three square metres (32 sq ft).

Paris is a terrible place where plants shrivel and perish, and where, of seven small infants, four die during the course of the year.' The street plan on the Île de la Cité and in the neighbourhood called the 'quartier des Arcis', between the Louvre and the 'Hôtel de Ville' (City Hall), had changed little since the Middle Ages. In 1845, the French social reformer Victor Considerant wrote: 'Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate. In the middle of the 19th century, the centre of Paris was viewed as overcrowded, dark, dangerous, and unhealthy. The street plan and distinctive appearance of the centre of Paris today are largely the result of Haussmann's renovation.īackground Overcrowding, disease, crime and unrest in the centre of the old Paris Haussmann's work was met with fierce opposition, and he was finally dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870 but work on his projects continued until 1927.

It included the demolition of medieval neighbourhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy by officials at the time the building of wide avenues new parks and squares the annexation of the suburbs surrounding Paris and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts. Haussmann's renovation of Paris was a vast public works programme commissioned by Emperor Napoleon III and directed by his prefect of Seine, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 18.

The paris architect