Magazine N°163

SPECIAL ISSUE: 30, THE RIGHT AGE

The age of 30. Without doubt the most beautiful age in a man's life, far removed from the questioning of adolescence and not yet in the regret of a youth that has fiché camp; but in almost all cases, that of an open mind, not to say a virtual availability to the changing world. And God, the world moves fast!

Voyages d'Affaires is 30 years old! 30 years, and that was yesterday. It was the age of typewriters, soon followed by Macintoshes and floppy disks; it was the age of photo-composers and model makers working with cutters and spray glue... In short, it was the age of a world with a vocabulary that is totally esoteric to today's millennials. Then came the fax and the minitel and then, and then...the sudden internet revolution. In fact, in less time than it takes to say it, we were on the cusp of an upheaval whose scope was far from imagined at the time.

Almost everything has gone through it. Information, of course, but also more or less all areas of industry and services, and all commercial transactions. Which - and this was the real surprise - has given rise to a new way of approaching working life. Telecommuting, coworking, flex offices and beyond, connectivity... in short, all the technology linked to mobility that is now part of the urban ordinary, even going so far as to overturn the old grammar-mayor of cities. As a result, the business districts of major metropolises have become more human, adding a host of contemporary art pieces to esplanades that were once glazed over with false modernity, creating gardens elsewhere that are still too young to be quite extraordinary, and opening rooftops and gyms galore... For thirty years, Voyages d'Affaires has witnessed the changes in major French and international metropolises and evolved with them, watching them move towards real quality of life options. The same applies to hotels, air travel and rail travel, all of which are commonplace for business travellers.

For this special 30th anniversary issue, Voyages d'Affaires sets out to draw up a panorama of the most innovative, most sustainable, greenest and most beautiful cities to live in. Here and there we make projections, almost hypotheses, about what they will become in the near future. A very modest vision, because at the rate things are going, it would be hard to guess what the future of the world in general, and business in particular, will be like in thirty years' time. A better one, no doubt about it! Unless... Unless, in the meantime, global warming brings about a completely different revolution. A vital one.

Serge Barret, Editor-in-Chief