Our society is being eroded from the inside: districts of social housing turning into ghettoes, the ideal of "living together" given a rough time by the proliferation of guarded residences and the exacerbation of communitarianism, etc., but we seem to accept the situation, to such an extent that we believe that all this will have no effect on our daily lives. A painstakingly strict observer of his country, Thierry Paquot is not one of those who turn their backs on reality. He hasn't written this book for the converts of change. L'urbanisme, c'est notre affaire! (Urbanism is our business!) is an invitation that, as long as we accept it, could tomorrow make our towns integrated, ecological and democratic. In fact we only have to look around us to be convinced that his five proposals for a new urbanism, full of enthusiasm and hope, will set us free from the lives to which we have all too quickly become reconciled.
