Buzz
Before the 1800s, walking in bustling cities was a perilous endeavor, with pedestrians constantly at risk of accidents. Lacking designated footpaths, they had to share the roads with animals, horse-drawn carts, carriages, wagons, and streetcars, making it a hazardous experience. To make matters worse, horse manure and human urine flowed freely on the streets of American and European cities. As noted by David P. Jordan in Transforming Paris, the cobblestone streets were so filthy that 19th-century essayist William Hazlitt remarked he could easily identify Parisians by their unique “light, jerking, fidgeting” walk, which was developed to avoid stepping in the disgusting muck.
WHERE THE SIDEWALK BEGINS
How did this revolting situation persist for so long? According to Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris's book on the subject, Sidewalks: Conflict and Negotiation over Public Space, the earliest sidewalks appeared around 2000 BCE in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), and evidence shows both ancient Greeks and Romans included pedestrian pathways in their cities. The Romans even had a special term, semita, for their sidewalks. However, after the fall of Rome in the 5th century CE, Europe entered a long period devoid of sidewalks. It wasn’t until after the Great Fire of London in 1666 that paved pedestrian walkways reappeared on some reconstructed streets.
Sidewalks were still quite uncommon, much like the rare luxury of rooftop pools in modern cities. In Paris, only a select few streets featured limestone trottoirs, disconnected walkways that served a similar purpose to curbs by keeping traffic at a distance. The widespread revival of sidewalks and their integration into urban life can be largely credited to Georges-Eugene Haussmann, the visionary responsible for the massive redesign of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s.
HAUSSMANN’S MASTER PLAN
The self-proclaimed Baron Haussmann (a title never formally recognized) held near absolute power in reshaping Paris. Under the rule of Napoleon III, he dismantled the cramped, dimly lit streets of medieval Paris, replacing them with broad, sunlit boulevards and rows of nearly identical apartment blocks with uniform facades. Alongside these grand boulevards were—of course—sidewalks. But these were no ordinary sidewalks. As Marshall Berman notes in All that is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity, they were “lined with benches, lush with trees.” These sidewalks became the ideal space for Parisians to see and be seen, where the bourgeoisie gathered to stroll and socialize in great numbers. What once were foul open sewers were transformed into fashionable spaces, altering the very essence of urban living.
The importance of sidewalks in Haussmann’s redesign of Paris was deeply influenced by 19th-century concerns about public health. Urban planners, drawing on medical metaphors, argued that a healthy city was one that allowed for free movement—where fresh air, traffic, and people could flow seamlessly through wide, arterial roads. By separating pedestrian traffic from vehicular movement, sidewalks helped to organize and cleanse the city. Paved walkways allowed pedestrians to avoid stepping into the waste that littered the streets, while the introduction of sewer and water systems helped to reduce the amount of liquid waste on the cobblestones. The humble sidewalk emerged as a symbol of hygiene and morality, standing at the forefront of the battle against urban dirt.
Haussmann, known for his lavish spending, was dismissed by Napoleon III in 1870 after critics accused him of extravagance (under his watch, the city’s municipal debt skyrocketed 15-fold). However, his plan for Paris had a profound influence, with its principles being adopted by urban planners in cities like Vienna, Barcelona, and, in the United States, by the City Beautiful movement in Chicago and Washington, D.C. As Haussmann’s ideals spread, sidewalks became a ubiquitous feature of city planning, and by the late 19th century, they were common in major cities across the world. By turning city streets into spaces for both leisure and consumption, sidewalks fundamentally transformed how we experience urban life.
