Rethinking Density, Part One provided evidence that most Americans of prime working age (25-54) want to live in detached houses in low-density residential areas, which I’m calling “suburbs”, following federal government classification guidelines*. Americans also prefer community and residential features such as limited street traffic, open space options nearby, large back yards and off-street parking (Cao et al. 2009). They especially want to live in quiet neighborhoods that are safe for walking and for kids to play outdoors.
Sounds appealing - I’d like to live there! Sadly, the delights of suburbia have traditionally come with a substantial carbon footprint, thanks to much higher levels of driving and residential energy use than what is seen in compact urban communities. That’s because residents of densely populated urban communities are likely to live in apartments, which are more energy efficient than detached houses, and they drive a lot less than folks in outlying areas. It’s no wonder “smart growth” urban planners and environmentalists promote dense urban living. We’ve got to get those emissions down. Time is of the essence.
But wait! The studies and density advocates are assuming that driving and residential energy use will continue to rely on energy sources that emit greenhouse gases. But what about remote work, online shopping, electric vehicles, renewables, smart nuclear, and carbon-capture? Aren’t these (and other) technological developments going to change the equation in the not-so-distant future? As within a decade or so?
Factor into the equation that most Americans really, really don’t want to live in dense communities, much less in tall apartment buildings, especially when they have kids. Why push them to live in the cities when the urban emissions advantage is shrinking? Just because people want something, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have it. Of course that doesn’t mean they should get everything they want (especially if it means further encroachment on wild habitat), but some rethinking of “smart growth” is definitely in order.
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* The Bureau of Justice Statistics counts big city residential areas as suburbs if their housing density falls below a certain threshold. In Classification of Urban, Suburban, and Rural Areas in the National Crime Victimization Survey, the BJS classified well over half the residential areas of “principal cities” as suburbs.
Note: While writing this post I came across a notice for an upcoming issue of the journal Sustainability: "Rethinking Urban Population Density and Sustainable Cities". It should be out early next year.
Reference:
Cao, J., Mokhtarian, P. L. and Handy, S. L. (2009) The relationship between the built environment and nonwork travel: a case study of Northern California, Transportation Research Part A, 43, pp. 548–559.