Paris is roaring back despite everything. This week is la rentrée, France’s national return to work after the summer holidays, and the government is doing everything it can to avoid another lockdown. Masks are obligatory in public places, but otherwise life proceeds almost as it did before the pandemic. Stand in the middle of Paris, look around you, and the roads, offices and flats are packed again. Only one (vast) bit of the city centre is almost empty: the river.
Most cities were built on rivers. People originally settled in Paris because of the Seine, and in London for the Thames. A third of New York City’s surface area is water. For centuries, city folk used rivers for shipping, sewage, fishing and play. In a rare city without a big river — Johannesburg, say — you notice its absence.
Yet in recent decades, we have neglected urban rivers. Now, as coronavirus prompts us to remake cities for the age of working from home and Amazon Prime, we need to return the waterways to service.