The Nineteenth Century City: culture and governance

Modernizing urban culture The relationship between religion and urban identity. Compulsory free education and universities. Efflorescence of secular entertainments. Opera, theater, competitive sport. Museums and libraries. International exhibitions.

Urban landscapes Obsolescence of city fortifications and traffic congestion. The construction of new public buildings. Renewal of the central districts and representation of the national identity. The institution of green spaces.

Housing The values of domesticity. The organization of interior spaces. House as a symbol of social status. Housing for middle-classes and for working class. Expansion of the city and costitution of social distinctivness.

State and city The control of national central government on the municipality. The Napoleonic model. The ascendancy of the bourgeoise in municipal politics. State-controlled police forces and public order. Managing health and environmental problems. The origins of a new burocracy.

Municipal government The fragmentation of responsability for rilief. Private associations and public agencies. Long-standing problem of urban finances. The consolidation of municipal government after 1870s. City as laboratory for experimenting public policies. A new social welfare interventionism.

Paris Haussmann and the master plan for the imperial capital. Boulevards, squares, public buildings, green areas, infrastructures. Public and private building programs. A model for the European capitals in XIX century. Landscape of power and positivist science. The effects on the social structure.