Kuper’s way of commending Paris in its current direction ultimately reflects the naiveties and delusions of those who set it on this trajectory in the first place. There is a belief that urban planning projects can serve as a way to tame and pacify the city’s riot-ready ethnic youth. It takes a certain level of insular Parisian elitism to believe that radicalized hoodlums, whether into vandalism or Islamism, will be assuaged by city libraries, greenery, and sporting grounds.