Where People Live: Essays on Transportation, Environment, and the Quality of Life

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This title contradicts many generally accepted notions on transportation, environment, and the quality of life. It is a must-read for geographic information system (GIS) users and urban planning experts who wish to round out their knowledge with a French expert’s take on these issues.

Where People Live: Essays on Transportation, the Environment and Quality of Life elucidates Jean Poulit’s philosophical insights, professional observations, calculations, and personal review of urban planning research, which is based on many years as a leading French authority on transportation. Poulit observes that people, regardless of a transportation system’s quality, speed, or scope, travel on average about the same amount of time every day to reach their destinations. Nonetheless, an improved or further-reaching transportation infrastructure would allow them to reach new, additional, and more distant destinations, improving job and leisure time prospects within that same travel time. The end result would be more wealth for everyone—workers, employers, and the nation—in terms of higher gross national product (GNP). According to Poulit, access to destinations is tantamount to a creation of value. Ecology is also crucial. And fighting for a preserved planet and preserving the economic efficiency of humankind go hand in hand.

Jean Poulit has had a long career in French public administration, especially as an urban planner. Until early this year, he was president of the European Umbrella Organization for Geographic Information (EUROGI). Before his recent retirement he was director general of a new national agency for energy saving, as well as in charge of developing the Marne La Vallee area east of Paris. As a prefect, he was responsible for the entire Ile de France region. Poulit also was director general of the Institut Geographique National, the French national mapping agency, and president of CERCO and later vice president of EuroGeographics. He developed public/private partnerships in the field of reference data production and value-added services.