Quality History Tea: Sidewalks

Now, I know what you're thinking, why exactly am I writing a crash course about sidewalks? Well, I was curious how we pedestrians went from fighting for space for ourselves where horses, carriages with horses, and cars were chilling to having our own lane right next to cars zooming past.

When did present day sidewalks become a thing?

Well, that wasn't until 1860's in France!

Who invented present day sidewalks?

The person we have to thank for giving us the room we needed to walk alongside traffic and take aesthetic photos next to said road is George-Eugene Haussmann.

Ok so how did this actually happen, did he just wake up one day and was like Y'KNOW WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS? A SIDEWALK THAT'S WHAT. TIME TO MAKE THIS MAGIC HAPPEN. DO I NEED A PATENT FOR THIS?!

uh nope that's not the quality history tea that happened. Napoleon III phoned him up [or were they still using birds for communication?] and gave him clear instructions: redesign the country of France. Before Haussmann took over designing the city, the streets were pretty tiny and just enough room for horses, carriages and the early version of cars. 

MINI SIDE BAR

So I'm talking about where the main inspiration for present day sidewalks came from however! In 1666, after the Great Fire of London, sidewalks began coming into the conversation of the architecture of the city. At that time sidewalks were still not something countries thought their cities needed. And WAY before then, there's evidence of Ancient Greek & Romans having a path for pedestrians to walk alongside the road.

END OF MINI SIDE BAR

On a scale of 1 - 10 how awkward is it to point at a bench when people are sitting on the other bench right across? I'd say a solid 12343.

Haussmann designed France to have similar apartment buildings repeated throughout the country, wide roads rather than tiny ones and you guessed it! Sidewalks to chill right next to those roads. But this wasn't a sidewalk where you could only squeeze in if you walked in a single file line, no, this was a sidewalk that had benches and trees decorated alongside.

Now this obviously meant France loved Haussmann for changing their city life to be safer for them to walk outside, right?

HAHA no. Napoleon III was not born-to-party with the cost of redesigning France, and fired him. Now, if you're sitting there like NAPOLEON YA BOY BLESSED FRANCE WITH SAFETY AND MADE CITY LIFE, CITY LIFE WHY DID YOU FIRE HIM? 

Well, you see, after Haussmann's redesign, the city's debt levels increased by 15-fold.*

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So, I'm assuming 15-fold means 15 times the original amount, if you notice that isn't correct, please correct me! That just seemed the most logical explanation as I was researching!

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this white pin I'm wearing REALLY wanted to shine so for most of these pictures I'm attempting to tuck the scarf over the pin

Even though Haussmann was fired, that doesn't mean his influence didn't spread to other countries. Vienna, Barcelona, Chicago, Washington D.C. followed in his footsteps and included sidewalks in their plans of the cities.

AND THERE YA HAVE IT - THE HISTORY OF SIDEWALKS EXPLAINED!

Did you think Haussmann was going to get fired? I for one was that white man blinking meme when I read he was fired.

I haven't done a crash course in so long and suddenly found myself staring at sidewalks and TADA CRASH COURSE IS BORN

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p.s. I've recently been filming on YouTube and would love to know what you guys think of my first video back, I'll be uploading on there every Saturday (that's the plan!). I would love for some feedback on it if you have a few minutes to watch it.

KK THAT IS ALL HAVE A GREAT DAY

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