An afternoon among the highrises of La Défense or high noon at the Centre Pompidou’s famous fountain are both ways to jet into Paris’s 21st-century future. People often use architecture to describe Paris’s forward-looking tendencies. Parc de la Villette is a postmodern express train to the year 2500. Other revamped institutions like the Opéra Bastille and the Institut du Monde Arabe de Paris prove that Paris has her eye on the cultural horizon. But you should not have to look far to behold the new—from Paris’s now-bustling multicultural communities, to the city’s break-neck circulation and the beautiful bodies gyrating in the discothèques. Paris is undoubtedly the fastest city this side of the channel.