The city of Paris is planning on building new towers. Is this an initiative in the line of sustainable development ? The answer is complex, as are all those relating to ecology.

As of now, the Paris experience has been exemplified by the Montparnasse tower, which has mangled the totality of the capital’s most beautiful perspectives and has destroyed the magic of this Parisian district along with its urban plan. Other achievements include a tower dedicated to business offices, boulevard Morland, a few steps away from the Notre Dame cathedral: the Jussieu tower, famous for its asbestos; the 15th century towers, which needs refurbishing; also the towers from La Défense, an important business district which can be seen from the Tuileries as if under your nose...

When visiting the world, not one city has succeeded to maintain its sacred character, built throughout centuries because we were then giving time to time.

Is this a fatality? Does it mean being opposed to progress to be questioning or to be opposing the building of residential or office towers?

Let us understand the reasons justifying the high rise building: prices of building-sites, their scarcity, cars devouring all space, and efficacy of verticality for business buildings: Only economical reasons, none related to the quality of the citizen’s life. Elected members have their short term worries, property developers their financial obligations, architects their aesthetic concepts. Yet, how come Paris’ first arrondissement, just as dense in population as the district of La Défense, manages room for two big parks: the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, and yet none of its buildings is higher than 7 levels?

How does this relate to sustainable development ? very directly. Skyscrapers were, during the early 20th century, the symbol of triumphant modernity. Weren’t they also telling us about the actors’ inability to escape from the constraints of urban development?

Building residential towers has not given proof of providing appropriate living spaces. No doubt building office towers was an unavoidable stage at the time, even if it seems out-of-date today: more than thirty years ago, the question was already addressed by economists and urbanists, and it remains up-to-date. At the time of internet, video-conferencing and portable phones, along with the obligation to reduce costly and exhausting moves, couldn’t we think over the urban design a little more, trying to escape from economic fatality?

Sacred Planet does not have any ready-made answer to this question, but will assign the file to its experts in order to evaluate and compare the different experimentations and urban solutions throughout the world.

The French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), in its October 2007 magazine, opens a highly opportunistic and appropriate case today: the well-being of animals.

This initiative shows how research is evolving towards a respect for animals, an attitude at the heart of dignity and ethics: a humane attitude. Recalling the 1993 five freedoms from the Farm Animal Welfare Council: Freedom from Hunger and Thirst, Freedom from Discomfort, Freedom from Pain Injury or Disease, Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour, and Freedom from Fear and Distress. (www.fawc.org.uk)

Sacred Planet will be bound to broadcast all actions taking this direction.