Between Nature and Asphalt
Sustainable Development and Mobility

Title: Connecting People While Preserving the Planet:  Essays on Sustainable Development Author: Jean Poulit Publisher: ESRI Press ISBN: 978-1-58948-192-3 Number of pages: 230 Price: $29.95

A lot of nonsense is spouted about the mobility behavior of people. The people for and against adding more roads have done battle against each other for years with arguments about why it is or why it is not a good idea to construct more roads. In his book ‘Connecting People While Preserving the Planet' French author Jean Poulit makes clear the choices people make in their daily travel behavior and why they do so. Poulit relates these choices to spatial-economic theories that policy makers can use for linking spatial policy and mobility policy in better ways. Growth in mobility is necessary for realizing the economic potential of a country as a whole, but green spaces must be reserved for resolving and recreation, according to Poulit. Sustainable development is necessary for the longer term.

By Eric van Rees
 

When you hear about daily traffic jams, you may be inclined to think that constructing more roads will lead to more traffic jams. This is just one of the many assumptions that French author Jean Poulit debunks in his book ‘Connecting People While Preserving the Planet'. Equipped with over forty years of knowledge and experience in the fields of spatial planning and mobility policy in France, he states that it's possible to satisfy the need for more mobility, while at the same time limiting the detrimental effects on future generations.

Poulit provides an optimistic vision to accompany the pessimistic ideas that are spread around the globe about man's influence on the earth's climate. Although it is not directly GIS-related, ESRI's CEO Jack Dangermond stated in his preface to the book that Poulit's ana­lysis can inspire the work of policy makers throughout the world because the problems it describes are universal. All the more so, as developing countries will undergo huge spatial changes that will be paired with a growing need for mobility.

Approach
For 25 years Poulit performed research on the mobility behavior of residents of urban and rural areas in France, to see what choices people make in their daily lives and how the availability of different means of transport influence their behavior. This research showed that, over time, people do not spend more time each day travelling to work (namely an hour and a half), but travel faster and because of this, further than before. The same goes for the number of reachable destinations because of the construction of more roads and the introduction of other means of transport (bus, metro etc.). Not only do these developments create more economic wealth, but they also provide access to na­tural areas where people can relax and add to their quality of life. Mobility thus creates well-being and prosperity. There are, how­ever, limits to this well-being: when it takes too long to travel to a certain destination, there won't be any travelling because there is no gain. The same goes for areas that are within reach, but where there is nothing to gain in terms of well-being and prosperity.

Doubtful
By means of a number of case studies Poulit shows how living areas can experience economic advantages from the construction of new roads, so that there is better access to areas where there are more and better jobs. Looking at it the other way around, do people adjust their travel behavior as a result of these new destinations and roads? Looking at the geographical spread of jobs, a concentration of jobs will occur, which makes it possible to compare different regions on a national and international scale. Things get more complicated when Poulit wants to compare the quality of life with the economic performance of these areas. Poulit himself admits this is a doubtful thing to do, because measuring a difficult and subjective concept like well-being is not the same as comparing the wages in different areas. It may not be the best thing to do, but Poulit means his approach is better than speculation, based on assumptions that are not supported by figures. The reason for this approach is to show that nature has a buffer and leisure function where people can find rest and recreation. In other words, people cannot do without them, even if they don't add directly measurable value. Equal spreading of green and economic zones also creates equality between well-being and prosperity in urban areas where most economic growth occurs. After these arguments about the connections between economic centers, transportation networks and mobility behavior, Poulit writes about the negative effects of human behavior on nature (pollution, the greenhouse effect, etc.). The influence of sustainable development, such as spatial planning that deals with these problems, can help to solve these problems. How this works is explained in detail in the last quarter of the book. Poulit expects a lot from cleaner means of mobility and urban planning where a lot of space is reserved for green zones. It's important to connect different urban zones by means of rapid (public) transport.

Verdict
In this book Poulit shows how people use space in terms of mobility and create spatial planning to accommodate their use. In judging this book it is important to keep in mind that the research data presented serves to support his message (mobility growth, subject to sustaina­bility). Poulit's message is not completely new, but novelty is not the strength of this book. What is interesting about it is taking the mobility beha­vior of individuals as the point of reference for mobility policy. Reality has shown that many of Poulit's proposed policy measures were based on the right assumptions about people's travel behavior. The first part of his book which deals with these issues is very well written and strong in its message. This counts less for the second part of the book about the influence of man's behavior on nature. This information is well known and also agreed upon. The biggest objection to the chosen approach is given by the author himself, namely his decision to measure such subjective concepts as ‘quality of life' and ‘well-being' and compare them with the economic growth rate of an area to see if there's a balance between the two. It seems like Poulit's goal justifies his means, since there is hardly any foundation to this working method. What do these results tell us and how can the quality of natural areas be measured and compared to living areas, and which areas are they? Are they only the adjacent living areas or all living areas in a country? Another objection is the omission of new forms of spatial planning, such as the combination of functions in living areas and underground planning which is becoming more and more popular in certain areas. In Poulit's vision, space is either green or economic and can't be both. The good thing about Poulit's approach is that he makes clear, logically, why mobility growth is necessary, without making any far-reaching statements about the climate developments that often are based on vague assumptions and emotions that serve a political purpose. The intuitive case studies on the new satellite towns of Paris are very inte­resting. For policy makers around the globe, this book is highly recommended.

Eric van Rees evanrees@geoinformatics.com is editorial manager of Geoinformatics. For more information, have a look at http://gis.esri.com/esripress/display/index.cfm