Greater Paris sheds old stereotypes as the city transforms

ROGER COHEN

New York Times

For a long time, what is, and what is not, Paris was defined by the 21-mile beltway that encircles it. Inside the Périphérique, as the road is known, was the romantic city of gilded bridges and ageless beauty that inspired the most famous line in the movies, Humphrey Bogart's epitaph for love: "We'll always have Paris."

Beyond it, in the banlieue, or suburbs, home to many immigrants, stood dilapidated public housing. From time to time, as in 2005, riots erupted. The postal code 93, denoting the vast department of Seine-Saint-Denis north of the city, was synonymous to some with troubled dereliction, however reductive that stereotype became over time.

Forget all that. Greater Paris is born, reconfiguring the city. The Périph, a moat no longer, has steadily beco