Modern Paris owes its shape to Georges Haussmann and Napoleon III, who collaborated to reshape the city’s spatial fabric. This duo’s effort to renovate the city was driven from above and financed with municipal dollars. Yates begins her study of the emergence of a property market in Paris in 1872, at a moment when the city was recovering from physical and fiscal ruin, the result of a Prussian siege and an uprising by the city’s residents. When peace was restored to Paris, one of the most pressing issues confronting the municipal government, the city’s residents, and Paris’ commercial community was how to rebuild the city to meet the needs of multiple stakeholders. As Yates shows, in contrast to the earlier Haussmann era, this period of rebuilding was fragmented, undertaken by multiple actors, and financed by private funds, driven by the imperatives of the market.
In taking this time of crisis...