For every time I travel, I find myself looking at cities more and more through the eyes of a city planner. I find myself occupied with how they maintain the trees, how much space is allocated for pedestrians and bikes, and how they handle the garbage situation. I recognize what a huge difference the lower speed limits in city centres have (30km/h in Paris vs. 50km/h here), with less noise and less stress.
Some things we do really well here, and cities from all parts of the world look to us, when it comes to things like bicycling infrastructure. In some cases they even improve it (like the shared bike systems, by far exceeding ours).
The city planners of Copenhagen need to do the same: look to other cities, pick what really works, and implement it here, if possible. For instance, in cities like Berlin and Stockholm they don’t use salt on the roads in the wintertime, but here we have
killed off nearly half of our road trees with salt, over the last few years, and we are still counting. We urgently need to look into that!
The biggest difference from Copenhagen is how the city planners seem to put people's need first. Below Hotel de Ville the public square, summer edition.
The Seine beach.
Streets are for people, not cars. This street is reserved for cyclists and pedestrians in the hours between 11-19. Are you paying attention here, Mayor Jensen?
The police is not the enemy of cyclists, but among us. Showstoppers:

And how do we get a farmers market? Skip the part with the
greedy developer chopping down everything green, to make space for parking, renting out his square metres to chain stores at a rate, no independent farmer can afford. All it takes is this:
This space can be used for everything from flea markets to farmers and flower markets. Everything is possible, it's a public space, right? Whatever rigid rule is standing in the way of this, should be looked into, and eliminated. Let the city breathe, please.
And, this has become a small ritual of mine: I go to visit the vertical garden at BHV Homme. Having followed it from the early stage, my feelings for this wall are bordering on maternal.
Clearly this was not just meant to be a quick greenwashing smokescreen, but a lasting piece.
Lastly the love for the city and respect for the people shows in the way they cover up their construction sites. Yes, cities grow and need maintaining, but it does not have to be ugly and unbearable.
A construction site is not just perceived as an opportunity to rent out advertising space to the highest bidder. More important things are at stake here: like the quality of life for the citizens.
I want for my city to be treated with the same degree of love and respect. And it will happen, I will do everything in my power to see to it.
End Paris report.