<< don't know why everyone hates the crowds>>

Shouldn't that be obvious?

We were in Paris for a week in early August...we walked straight in to Notre Dame, Saint Chappelle, Conciergerie etc.

The only line we saw was for the Eiffel Tower at about 2pm on a sunny day. We decided to come back the next morning at opening time, and there absolutely no line for the stairs.

We definitely appreciated the lack of lines to see attractions.

I don't know why everyone hates the crowds. I feel Paris, and any city in general, is livelier and much more fun when it's full of tourists.>

Me too but if you lived there I guess it would get tiring even though the crowds I think are localized in a relatively few places.

Well I guess 'nobody goes to Paris any more because it's too crowded'?

I wouldn't trade my bi-annual trips to Paris for any other city in the world.

I think it is hypocritical that tourists don't like the crowds. If you don't like the crowds don't contribute to the problem. Not many places in the world as good as Paris.
I have never seen crowds like lunchtime in Oxford Street London in 2013. The people in both cities manage to be polite and helpful despite all the issues that the crowds bring.

A big city without crowds would be downright creepy. What would do that? Plague? Nuclear terror? Zombie apocalypse?

Paris is far from empty. We appreciate everybody's concern but really we are doing just fine in Paris.

+1 on Kerouac.

I have a theory about the crowds issue, which I came up with because I hear it from all my friends who travel about every place they travel to! My theory is that people remember their first trip, or first few trips, to a much-loved place in an idealized way. On subsequent trips, which are still great, they notice the negatives, crowds being the most obvious when we're talking about popular destinations such as Paris.

There are corollaries to my theory: familiarity, e.g., the better you get at navigating the Metro/Subway/what have you, the more you notice the slow tourists that clog your way; and advancing age, which makes people grumpy in general.

Of course, some places really are more crowded than they used to be.

I doubt anyone, tourist or resident, would personally notice a 10-20% decrease in crowds, but it's a steep decline for the tourism industry.

Of course Paris is ok despite any drops in tourism. However wonder how individuals who rely on tourism for their income feel?

As I posted on another thread in July, I was back in Paris in June and there were hardly any crowds. My friend and I walked straight into the Museum D'Orsay, Grand Palais, Louis Vuitton Foundation, and other places. The ropes were out, for crowd control, but there were no crowds.

Interesting in that article that as for the Asian market, that there's a reported 46.5% drop for Japanese, 19.6% for Chinese, but that U.S. visitors are least deterred at only a 5.7% drop.

Happy Travels!