THE FUTURE LIES IN CITIES. Not the future for the poor, or the rich, the Chinese or the Brazilians or Japanese—the future for all of us.
The more you understand the increasingly dire state of the world’s ecosystems, and the relentless upward curve of population growth, the clearer it becomes that moving in—densification, the opposite of what we’ve done for the last 50 years—is the best option left, and the one that might save us from ourselves.
By Matthew Power
ities don’t ask you to change how you see the world. To live in a city, you don’t have to become a nature lover or activist, cut your consumption of plastic junk from Wal-Mart, create less waste, have fewer children, or eat less meat. But chances are, the cities themselves will transform you.
That’s because the greenest places to live in the world are extremely dense cities, such as Vancouver and New York City. As author David Owen (Green Metropolis) points out, however, it’s not that the people living there are inherently greener—it’s because density is its own reward. When you live in stacked apartments, each unit below heats part of the unit above. When your space is smaller, you collect less furniture and “stuff” to fill the void. And perhaps most importantly, when you’re close to stores, schools, restaurants and hair salons, you tend to drive less and walk more. Put simply, you use less of everything.
Our views about eco-friendly development patterns (my own included) have become outdated and now appear completely upside down. In advocating single-family housing—in the ‘burbs or rural countryside—albeit net-zero or better, we may be handing out fluorescent light bulbs on the deck of the Titanic.
With the population headed for more than 9 billion by 2050, the stress on biodiversity, climate change and resource shifts will make such lifestyle choices increasingly difficult to rationalize.
Yet in the U.S. especially, where resource use per person dwarfs that of most of the rest of the world, urging people to reduce consumption is heresy. The party continues, despite ever more dire warnings about climate change, drought, the percolating dangers of global inequality and so on.
Here’s where cities come in. They offer a choice that is by design more sustainable than the suburban narrative of the 1950s that still dominates U.S. policy and planning. People in cities consume less, because of where and how they live, not because they occupy the moral high ground.
How Much Less? Researchers have put some figures on the consumption impact of urban living. The starting point is usually density. Owen notes that residents of New York, living at a density of 26,403 people per square mile, have rates of C02 emission (per capita) that are 71 percent lower than the national average. But current zoning laws in most of the U.S. actually preclude the kind of mixed-use zoning found in New York. This is a problem. Without such high-density “congregation,” population growth will be increasingly burdensome. If the residents of New York City spread out the way people in Vermont do, Owen notes, every acre of land in the northern six states would be part of a gigantic suburb.
“In some ways, our needs are at war with each other. We need the nourishing, helping warmth of other people, but we also need the healing touch of nature. We need to connect, but we also need to retreat.”—Charles Montgomery
“In some ways, our needs are at war with each other,” he says. “We need the nourishing, helping warmth of other people, but we also need the healing touch of nature. We need to connect, but we also need to retreat.”For commuting to and from work, special limits apply.
American Gridlock. Darker areas indicate longer commute times. Few regions of the country can brag of lifestyles that are auto independent.
A study by the UK’s Office of National Statistics recently put commuting to work in a new light. What it found is that virtually any type of commuting—including bicycles and walking—makes people less happy. They would rather work at home.
Research by Patricia Mokhtarian reinforces the idea that the destination of travel affects how people feel about it. And when it comes to mobility, feelings dictate behavior. Mokhtarian found that for people in the San Francisco area, 16 minutes is the magic number. That’s the length of time people are willing to spend commuting between work and home.
After that period, unhappiness increases steadily. Sixteen minutes apparently plays out psychologically like a heroic journey. Drivers feel pleased that they have endured the stress and mental demands of driving for that time, so that they can feel the satisfaction of making it home.
The average commute time for most Americans, however, is closer to 40 minutes.
We’ve all seen the new Smart Fortwo personal vehicles in U.S. cities—more popular every day.
But as author David Owen points out, we have to look at the bigger picture. When urbanites see these vehicles, they see a vehicle that could solve the problem of city parking.
If they normally use transit, however, they help create the critical mass that makes mass transit efficient. As a personal automobile owner, they’ve actually become a bigger environmental drain.
Transportation’s Slow Mode. The best guess for future transportation is multi-modal. City residents will have little need for high speed travel. All amenities will be within easy walking, bike or transit distance. They can choose from a palette of affordable and easy-access options. A variety of incentives will reward walkers and bikers: lower insurance costs and discounts at stores and restaurants, even clothing stores.
Satellite Cities and Farms. Automobiles will remain a transport mode of choice for short-hop journeys and excursions to small towns, satellite cities and farm areas. Drivers may choose driverless options, traveling on roads made from recycled plastics and rubber (from tires) left in ample supply by former inhabitants. Roads will be narrow and some will allow for one-way traffic only at various times of day, creating purposeful obstacles that encourage planning and discourage unnecessary trips.
Intercity Travel. For travel to distant large cities, wilderness destinations or distant relatives, high-speed trains will operate on zero-friction tracks, but citizens will need to plan ahead, as these will run less frequently—but more efficiently—than today’s rail lines.
Freight Shipping. Heavy shipping also will change dramatically. Barring the longshot of mankind mastering fusion-powered mechanics, dirty diesel freight will be replaced by super-efficient wind-powered transports made with lightweight, recycled composites.
Air Travel. The devastating impact of jetliners on the atmosphere will make fossil-fuel-powered jetliners a costly and highly regulated form of travel, available only to illegal drug smugglers and the military. In their place will be a wide variety of slower, self-powered flying machines, including composite planes and dirigibles, covered with flexible solar cells that self-repair with nanotechnology. Jules Verne may have been right, after all.
Cities. Urban centers of tomorrow will look a lot like the best cities of today, and less like the highway-dependent fantasies of Le Corbusier.
Recycled “Bales.” Many buildings are constructed with “bales” of recycled aluminum cans and other products, held together with a polymer resin reclaimed from plastic debris scourged from the world’s oceans. The polymer creates a thermal break that makes the bales super-insulating.
Slow but Accessible. Streets are wide enough to accommodate small trucks as well as bicycle traffic. Recyclable speed bumps made from tire rubber slow vehicle momentum.
Bikes-Safe Lanes. To make bicyclists feel safer, raised curbs between bike lanes and streets add a buffer.
Mixed-Use Streetscapes. Storefronts, exercise areas and studios co-exist with ample and affordable housing. Rentals are flexible and diverse in layout, ranging from condo-type purchases to long-term leasing.
Easy Transit Access. Multi-modal transit, including subways, buses and new technologies such as pneumatic tubes enable the dense city center to expand into a “megacity,” without leaving residents feeling trapped.
Solar Elevators. Vertical lift is one of the most energy-efficient forms of transportation, so fast, efficient elevators will play an important role as cities condense. With careful siting and dynamic glass, they can also serve as passive solar heating.
Room to Grow. Codes require all apartments to incorporate viable space for home gardening, such as these small terraces irrigated with graywater from each unit. Small wind turbines and solar panels power LED lighting.
Please Loiter. Benches and “encounter-friendly” street design encourage community conversations.
Solar Smart. Integrated solar panels throughout the city power vehicles, lighting and other infrastructure.
Low-Tech Conservation. Easy-access clothes-drying lines save energy and connect residents.
Shared Views and Solar. Staggered building designs optimize solar orientation and protect views of greenspaces, at the same time creating many more opportunities for roof gardens.
Natural Education. To keep young people (who are far more invested in video games and electronic devices than in camping) connected with other species, community centers show holographic films about wild animals and locations.
Transit: Where Seconds Matter
To increase transit ridership, you have to make waiting times short, and information instantaneous.
A MINUTE SITTING IN A TRAIN STATION feels much longer-and stressful To counter this, many cities, such as Washington, D.C., now include digital arrival clocks at every subway station. Some metro systems, such as Providence, Rhode Island’s, offer smartphone apps that allow users to monitor buses in real time. These tools are increasing ridership, by removing anxieties about late trains and sitting too long in lonely bus stations.
It’s not time alone that puts people off transit, however. According to Montgomery, transit in some cities is seen as a mark of low social status. But that’s an image that can be changed. He notes how Bogota, Columbia, reconfigured its bus system, offering “sexy” new buses and giving priority to transit and pedestrians by creating special lanes that cross through all neighborhoods, no matter how affluent or poor—an effort that greatly increased ridership.
Will drivers give up the perceived “freedom” of the open road for semi-automated, self-steering vehicles?
That depends which drivers you’re talking about. While Baby Boomers might resist the idea, they’re rapidly graying—and research shows that about half of the generation now coming of drivingage would rather spend time online than driving.
Perhaps they will jump at theopportunity to simply get in and tell a vehicle where to go—allowing them to continue their mobile social chatting, gaming and video watching. Also, such vehicles will allow elderly citizens to continue “driving” despite failing health or poor eyesight. The vehicles are expected to hit the roads by about 2020, as this video from Bosch suggests.
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