Salon: Last week, Paris and Beijing had one of those feuds that city-watchers love so much. (Such head-to-head battles, like great inter-urban sporting events, fuel the illusion that cities are singular, indivisible, cultural entities.) In this case, it was a race to the bottom: Observers noticed, during the five-day air quality crisis in Paris last week, that there was more particulate matter in the Parisian atmosphere than in Beijing.
This was true, for a moment, but the comparison soon backfired on...