Urban Economy

"The city is a thousand years old, the rough and tumble city". From sprawling cities to Monopolis, a whole imaginary world has been built around the cities of the year 2000. Myths are out of the question today. Urban economics has established itself as a discipline in its own right, attracting more and more ENSAE graduates - even if, alas, this is not yet reflected in the Pre m i e r Emploi survey statistics we publish in this issue.

While the cities are expanding, the association continues to bustle and renew itself to maintain the tenuous link between alumni that is its raison d'être. Are anomy and indifference, as Durkheim suggested, the inevitable corollaries of modernization and urbanization, which produce places where solitudes multiply in multitude? To defend itself from these threatening tentacles, ASTEC implemented two major innovations at the turn of the new millennium: an active website and, for each alumnus, a lifetime e-mail address attached to the site.

Variances accompanies this movement to create a place for discussion, free speech (as is our Tr i b u n e L i b re, too often under-used) and exchange. In this issue, we continue our "ENSAE world tour". What are they becoming far from France? What drives them, what winds, what currents carry them along?

"The old dream is dead and the new is being forged, steaming with thought and sweat". Give your thoughts to those who give their sweat: ASTEC will be what you make of it.