by Alex Marshall - articles and essays

The Europe Articles:

The Future of Menial Jobs -- Europe and America Compared - "Slip in your credit card, scroll through some movie titles, press a button, and presto: out from a slot emerges the latest Depardieu, Schwarzenegger or Julie Roberts flic. Such machines haven't hit the United States yet. And with our low labor costs, they may never. In this country, it may always be cheaper to pay someone to man a late-night video store, rather than pay to set up the machine and develop the technology that makes it possible. This small example illustrates a big point: Western Europe is probably far more advanced than us technologically on a day to day level, in part because its higher labor costs push employers to innovate more." Click on link for full article.

Eurosprawl - "Americans have long idealized European cities. But it's taken on a new twist since World War II when the form and character of our metropolitan areas began changing so dramatically. Europe, most people believe, doesn't have suburban sprawl, it doesn't have vacuous shopping centers, it doesn't have crime- and poverty-ridden inner cities, it doesn't have the isolation of home, work, play and social life that seems to define American life. Virtually every book on the ills of American suburbia is sprinkled with asides about how Europeans still care about community, still value public spaces, still value lives built around the rhythms of a street built as much for feet as for tires. Well they don't. At least not as much as we think." Click on link for full article.

In Paris, The Wine Bar Is The Place To Drink Wine - "In fact, the "Bar a Vin" seemed a step back in time. The customers, mostly in their 30s and 40s, were dressed without any fashion in particular. It had a tile floor, a pewter metal bar, and an old coat rack in the corner. A soft yellow light spread across the whole restaurant, giving everyone a soft glow. But it also had the air of a thoroughly neighborhood place. Everyone knew each other, or so it seemed. When I entered, everyone turned and looked at me, a tall, obviously foreign, stranger. They weren't smiling. The waitress behind the bar, who was pretty in a kind of timeless Gallic way, with a thin face and aquiline nose, came over and said shortly in French, "What do you want." I had hardly had time to even glance at the blackboard where the names of ten red and ten white wines were scrawled." Click on link for full article.

A New City Grow Up On Berlin's Old No Man's Land - For a week we examined this city from the inside out, often with personal tours by top planners and architects. We saw a new city coming out of the ground, spurred on by the torrents of money, both public and private, rushing in to fill the blank spaces now that the dikes of communism and the Cold War have been broken and breached. For a traveler, Berlin is a great place to spend a weekend or a week, particularly if you like contemporary architecture. But it's also a great place to eat spicy German sausage from street vendors, drink great beer, shop for high fashion, and people watch. Click on link for full article.