As a personal perspective, France seems to have done better than any other place I've lived in to stem the tide of urban decline. I live two hours north of Alb

As a personal perspective, France seems to have done better than any other place I've lived in to stem the tide of urban decline. I live two hours north of Albi; local towns have free parking over lunch, so restaurants throng nearly every day of the week. Town center parking is free all day on Saturday, which attracts thousands of people, both locals and visitors, to the thriving market. The result is that not only are there no empty shops in town at all, and café culture is alive and well, but twice a week the towns are packed with several hundred market stalls. It's really very remarkable. Of course, tourism makes a lot of this viable; our town of 8,000 people has over a million visitors each year. But France more generally is a world champion at this, with 10% more visitors than the USA, 30% more than Spain and the better part of three times as many as the UK.