Many city dwellers with a child on the way think about decamping to the suburbs, but for Romain and Aurélie Fliedel, who were living in Boulogne-Billancourt, a town west of Paris, it was just the opposite. When Aurélie became pregnant with their first child, they decided to move back to the city, specifically to the 15th arrondissement, where they had once lived. They missed their old neighborhood, with its streets lined with boulangeries, cafes, and markets, and thought it would be a lively place to raise a family.
Their search for an apartment soon led to a surprisingly spacious three-bedroom duplex on the upper floors of an unassuming 1970s building. “It was much bigger than what we thought we would find,” says Romain, who works from home as a web…
