One of my least favorite things about Europe is the experience of sitting on a cafe terrace and having someone smoking beside you while you're trying to enjoy a gelatinous pig foot from Au Pied de Cochon. (I kid; gelatinous pig foot isn't my favorite.)
So here's some news: France has just announced that, starting July 1, smoking will be banned from nearly all public spaces, including parks, beaches, public gardens, and bus stops. That said, the ban does not yet include cafe terraces. So I can still expect my gelatinous pig foot experiences to be horribly ruined.
Still, this is a giant step in the right direction, especially for a country with one of the highest smoking rates among OECD countries. As of 2023, the national average for daily smokers was estimated at 23% for adults aged 18 to 75. The region with the highest percentage of smokers was the southeast (~29.5%) and the region with the lowest percentage of smokers was Greater Paris (~21.9%).
In addition to varying by region, smoking is also strongly correlated with socioeconomic status. INSEE, France's national statistics agency, estimated the following daily smoking rates as of 2022:
42.3% of unemployed adults
33.6% of people in the lowest income tier
30.8% of people without a degree (baccalauréat level)
16.8% of people with higher education (above baccalauréat level)
But even among high-income groups, the rates are significantly higher than what you'd find throughout the rest of Western Europe, and in places like Canada and the US. We're in the 10-11% range. All of this is why the French health ministry is now aiming to create a generation "free of tobacco" by 2032.
The majority of French people also seem to support this new public space ban; which maybe isn't surprising, given that the majority don't smoke.
Cover photo by Marie-Sophie Tékian on Unsplash
It's that time of year again.
Monocle has just released their annual Quality of Life Survey. This is their 18th annual ranking of the world's top cities according to what they do best: whether it be housing or nightlife. What I like about this survey is that it does things a little differently. Most liveability surveys tend to be a list of the world's most boring cities. It's as if uneventfulness is the measure of quality of life.
This is not that.
For example, number 3 on the list is Athens. And it's there specifically because of its nightlife. Monocle refers to it as "one of Europe's few truly 24-hour cities." Also on the list, at number 7, is Mexico City. This is a city that is required to have women-only subway cars because the men apparently can't behave in public.
Of course, it's an incredible city in so many other ways. It has leafy neighborhoods filled with the kind of mid-rise buildings that Toronto is now desperately trying to add to its major streets. And according to the survey, the city's population grew by about 600,000 people between 2019 and 2023 — many of whom came from the US and Canada.
Jumping to the top of the list, Monocle's city of the year and best all-rounder is a city that we talk a lot about on this blog: Paris. This is perhaps not surprising given the city's bold moves to pedestrianize streets, plant trees everywhere, build more than 1,000 km of bike lanes, and generally enhance the overall urban experience.
But it's not just that:
All of this, combined with the policies of the country’s most pro-business president in a long time, has helped Paris to draw and foster enough talent to snatch London’s double crown as Europe’s top venture-capital city and its leading technology hub. “Paris lends itself far more to an office-based culture than cities such as San Francisco or London,” says Jordane Giuly, the founder of fintech company Defacto. He points out that the French capital’s gentle density is conducive to cross-pollination between start-ups and preferable to the vast distances that one needs to traverse in its rivals.
For their full list of the 10 most livable cities in the world, click here.
Toronto never adopted a shared e-scooter program. And as far as I know, e-scooters in general are technically illegal to use on our public roads, though this illegality seems to be minimally enforced. But today, more cities around the world seem to be following suit.
Paris — which had become the leading scooter market in Europe — voted to ban them in 2023 (albeit with an extremely low voter turnout). Shared e-scooters are now also banned in Madrid, Malta, and in all of the Netherlands.
But I continue to think that this is a shame. I first tried a shared e-scooter in Lisbon in 2019. And at the time, I wrote "I now know what all the fuss is about!" It was a lot of fun. I used it to ride out to the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology. I also said that they would be arriving in Toronto imminently. Nope.
The main concerns seem to be around urban clutter and riders using them irresponsibly. But I think you could say the exact same thing about cars, and we're not going to ban those anytime soon.
So I agree with what Karen Vancluysen says in this recent CityLab interview: Keep e-scooters on the menu and give people as many transportation alternatives as possible. They're not going to work for everyone, but that's okay. They're one option in a broader mobility network.
Cover photo by Kseniia PENKOVA on Unsplash