The examples shown aren't cities of the size of Paris. Paris would be described here as more of the 'hypertrophic city', reliant on public transit, where for the author "When your primary focus is on walking, there is very little need to invest in extensive public transit".

The whole of Europe is full of small towns like the ones used as examples. There has been a big shift in living in the 20th century away from these places as modern jobs have shifted to larger cities.

Your example is right. Perhaps I should have said 'less connected environments' rather than 'low density environments'. Paris is quite dense and connected by public transport. Atlanta less dense, but probably easier to drive around. The amount of people within a 1 hour commute of the centre of either will, however, be hugely higher than the examples shown.

His examples were smaller than Paris, but I think Paris in many sections matches what he was talking about. His emphasis was on small streets.

I picked a couple random areas in central paris on google street view and found this:

  https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.859802,2.360516&spn=0.034502,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.858935,2.357198&panoid=KFedUek_xPdwmoxKOlmqLQ&cbp=12,312.34,,0,3.28

  https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Paris,+France&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=48.875074,2.338385&spn=0.034492,0.079308&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.089199,81.210938&oq=paris&hnear=Paris,+%C3%8Ele-de-France,+France&t=m&z=14&layer=c&cbll=48.875074,2.338385&panoid=JTi6slw3B6yserHz2yLGoQ&cbp=12,291.51,,0,11.39

Paris has transit, and large streets, but it has many, many small streets like that.

Yes. Paris is reasonably dense, low-height has some small streets. This matches some of what the article discusses, but not all. I don't think these of themselves are the most important positives of Paris though, which for me include its great metro rail system, 19th century boulevards (such as the famous Champs Elysee) and beautifully designed buildings (even some of the most mundane). Its not a city without fault, either.

True, Paris was renovated in the 19th century to be made more 'hypertrophic' [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Paris

The shift happened when Europeans came to the new world and saw it as 'carte blanche' to invent cities, top down, in their image. The Europeans had wanted to do that for a long time in Europe, but had lived with cities that had grown organically. Paris is a great example because they literally dug up half the city to remake it in a grid, after seeing cities in the Americas with similar structures. The trend continued (and maybe even continues) in South America: take a look at Brasilia, which may be the epitome of the type of city the OP detests.

I'd argue that Paris actually represents the epitome of what the OP detests in cities because they actually replaced narrow, winding alleyways with broad boulevards aimed at road transport.

It's also a clear example of why the author's theory that street width is all important is wrong: central Paris is still very walkable with an incredibly strong sense of "place" because of the broad boulevards rather than despite them, whereas plenty of the "walkable" streets he highlights are either cul de sacs in suburban areas or pedestrianised zones in town centres usually accessed by car.