Paris Districts?

Question

I am considering moving to Paris, France in the very far away future. I am trying to understand the city and how it works better. What are the districts of Paris and how are they like? Are they similar to the different parts of NYC? If so, are there any similarities between the districts?

Answer 1

oh, one more thing... the arrondissements are arranged in a giant spiral that starts in the center of town and works its way out in a clockwise manner. Here is a link with some basic info on the different arrondissements (which shares a root word that means to 'round-off'). "http://www.parisnet.com/parismap.html"

Answer 2

Paris is divided into arrondissements. There are 20 of these.

They are administrative areas which are considerably smaller than, for example, the boroughs of New York City. The division into arrondissements was not, strictly speaking, done on the basis of neighborhood characteristics and although each arrondissement has a name, they are most often referred to simply by number.

That being said, many Parisian arrondissements do tend to have an individual character and the fact that each arrondissement has its own "city hall" and administration tends to cause these characteristics to be reinforced by the political process.

(Paris has only recently had its overall city administration returned to it from central government control. So there is now an elected Mayor of Paris. However, the individual arrondissements continue to have their own "mayors" and city halls)

Working class is pretty much the same everywhere although the politics of France are quite different than in the USA and politics tends to divide more on class lines.

Answer 3

Rillifane is right. Here are more details: Paris (the city) is involved in Paris area (11 millions of inhabitants) that includes 7 departments (France is divided in 96 departments). Paris is the only city in France to be at the same time a city and a department.

Answer 4

http://goeurope.about.com/cs/france/l/bl...

this will answer all of your questions about arrondisments.