Living Little in Paris; A new industry is rising up, devoted to making the mini-flat feel a few meters more roomy.(France)(Cover story)

Byline: Tracy Mcnicoll

For all its august grandeur, Paris is remarkably petite. At 105 square kilometers, Europe's smallest capital is 16 times less roomy than London. The City of Light isn't even the biggest city in France--it ranks 113th, outdone by sleepy hamlets like Aragnouet and Guemene-Penfao. With a housing shortage feeding runaway real-estate prices, and a tenacious bureaucracy that just renewed a 1977 ban on buildings taller than 37 meters, living in Paris proper increasingly means living little. And that's making big winners of the ingenious entrepreneurs who are helping squeeze Parisians into their homes.

Every quartier in the capital has seen apartment prices double over eight consecutive boom years, with some districts recording 150 percent jumps. As prices rise, spaces shrink: 54 percent of Parisian apartments are smaller than 42 square meters. In 2005, the average family with two kids buying their first apartment in Paris could afford only 32.7 square meters, down a half meter in just one year. Over time, that adds up. Despite the ban on tall buildings, Paris is one of the most densely settled cities in the developed world, with nearly 25,000 residents per square kilometer, and up to 41,000 in packed arrondissements like the 11th, which includes the Place de la Bastille. That's about the same density as the infamously crowded warrens of Hong Kong's Kowloon district.

A closet economy of architects, designers and even appliance makers devoted to making small spaces feel bigger has thus sprung up. With the average Parisian square meter now going for nearly €6,000, bringing in a clever architect to snatch back a plot of parquet can make economic sense. "Basically, there is always one room missing," says Philippe Demougeot, one such architect. "Now people are ready to get rid of any unnecessary areas--the foyer, a hallway, they'll open up a kitchen--to gain space. It's a bit like a game of Rubik's Cube." As host of a house-call segment on the popular French TV show "Question Maison," Demougeot gets 3,000 letters a week from viewers asking him to fix their own small spaces.

Do-it-yourself magazines devote cover stories to small-space tips--for apartments as small as 18 square meters. Common tricks of the trade include walling in appliances with sleek placard doors. For top-floor apartments, breaking into unused attics can create space to raise ceilings, which tend to be quite high in Paris anyway. One of the ...