Tales of Two Cities: Paris, London, and the Birth of the Modern City

by Jonathan Conlin,
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 14, 2013

In "Parallele de Paris et de Londres" (1780), Louis-Sebastien Mercier compared the food, bridges, prisons, and pets of the two great cities in Europe. According to Jonathan Conlin, Mercier imagined the relationship between London and Paris as a grand conversation about how to design an ideal city.