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Why did Haussmann’s redesign of Paris displace many poorer residents from central neighbourhoods?

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Aerial view of Paris showing broad, radiating boulevards lined with historic buildings, demonstrating Baron Haussmann's city planning design. — urban planning Georges-Eugène Haussmann's modernization plan transformed many areas of Paris through the addition of wider boulevards, better lighting and water sanitation, new parks, and improved rail transportation.

Baron Haussmann’s redesign of Paris, commissioned by Napoleon III, displaced many poorer residents because his urban renewal program involved "slashing" wide, straight boulevards directly through the city’s existing "tangles of slums" and chaotic mass of narrow, medieval streets.12

This transformation required the large-scale demolition of private buildings and entire neighborhoods to make way for arterial thoroughfares, improved infrastructure, and public spaces. By gutting these densely populated, constricted areas to impose order, light, and modern sanitation, the project effectively cleared out the lower-income residents who had occupied those central districts. While these changes facilitated industrialization, improved movement, and enhanced the city's aesthetic and military control, the physical destruction of the old urban fabric necessitated the removal of the people living within it.12