Paris may have a monorail system and an artificial island in future

Edinburgh, April 29 (ANI): The city of Paris may see a monorail system, glass towers, or an artificial island in the future, if ten projects earmarked by the French government as part of a redevelopment project turn into reality.

According to a report in The Scotsman, the projects are included in an initial selection go on display in the Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, the Paris architectural museum, where French president Nicolas Sarkozy first called for a "bold" design overhaul in September 2007.

In this respect, Britain's Richard Rogers, who designed the 1970s landmark Pompidou Centre, Antoine Grumbach, a French architect who wants to link Paris with Le Havre on the Atlantic coast, or Roland Castro, who envisages a new business centre built on an artificial island in the Seine, have presented designs.

Among the plans on the table is an unmanned underground rail link between future business centres and central train stations and airports and a new metro network binding what is now the city of Paris with the suburbs by 2020.

Confined within the "peripherique" ringroad, the city of Paris has just over two million inhabitants, compared with about 7.5 million in Greater London, and pressure to merge with the neighbouring suburban areas has grown steadily.

The harmonious appearance of Paris, protected by rigid limits on buildings above a certain height, has ensured its status as one of the world's most frequently visited and photographed cities - but also threatened to turn it into a living museum.

Some 12 million people live in the Ile de France region, which accounts for about 30 per cent of French gross domestic product, but disjointed transport links and unevenly distributed resources have created growing problems.

The redevelopment is seen as a chance to create a greener city with local power generation and recycling stations buried beneath parkland and tight-knit tram and light rail networks.

The project would require long-standing political rivalries between national, city and regional authorities to be overcome, a task which has defeated previous redevelopment efforts. (ANI)