Neighborhoods built around single-family housing are ecologically unsustainable in a world increasingly challenged by climate change.
So, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray was right to seek more density in those neighborhoods. Compromising single-family zones to allow more multi-family housing (however mis-judged or inaccurately the idea was portrayed in the media), is the future of how we will live with each other.
Murray — who has since backed down and so is now wrong — wanted that density to lower housing costs and improve diversity (of all kinds) in the city. He was probably right about that, too. In fact, many of us who currently own single-family homes, and those who threw a fit at the idea of condos moving in next door, will eventually be priced out of our homes by masses of newcomers wealthier than we are. (See San Francisco)
But that’s the weakest argument (however good it might be) for changing the ideology around how and where we live. It’s a concept change that has to happen: We have to shift from the ideal of palatial homes spread out from each other to living in dense neighborhoods where everything we need is within walking distance.
Oh sure, you say. More chest beating about climate change … everything is causing climate change.
Well, the fact is that climate change is being driven by human produced CO2 and dense cities do far far better at reducing our venting of CO2 into the atmosphere than single-family home neighborhoods (a.k.a suburbs).
Click for larger view: From Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity. Center for Clean Air Policy 2011
According to a 2014 study by UC Berkeley researchers, as stated in a news release:
“… population-dense cities contribute less greenhouse-gas emissions per person than other areas of the country, but these cities’ extensive suburbs essentially wipe out the climate benefits. Dominated by emissions from cars, trucks and other forms of transportation, suburbs account for about 50 percent of all household emissions – largely carbon dioxide – in the United States.”
A key finding of the UC Berkeley study is that suburbs account for half of all household greenhouse gas emissions, even though they account for less than half the U.S. population. The average carbon footprint of households living in the center of large, population-dense urban cities is about 50 percent below average, while households in distant suburbs are up to twice the average.
“Metropolitan areas look like carbon footprint hurricanes, with dark green, low-carbon urban cores surrounded by red, high-carbon suburbs,” said Christopher Jones, a doctoral student working with Kammen in the Energy and Resources Group. “Unfortunately, while the most populous metropolitan areas tend to have the lowest carbon footprint centers, they also tend to have the most extensive high-carbon footprint suburbs.”
The researchers also point out, however, that density alone isn’t the key. As our neighborhoods become more dense, the infrastructure has to be there to get us out of our cars as well as into green homes.
Increasing population density alone, for example, appears not to be a very effective strategy for reducing emissions. A 10-fold increase in population density in central cities corresponds to only 25 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions, and “high carbon suburbanization results as an unintended side effect,” Jones said.
Nevertheless, multifamily density is an important part of not only keeping some affordable housing in the city, but also for creating a new housing ideology for a world drastically changed by global warming and the desperate need to drastically reduce our production of carbon.
It doesn’t solve the problem to buy a hybrid and retrofit your house if all of that takes place 20 miles from your job. You’d still consume more energy (“suburban single family green”) than an urban household without the latest green tech (“urban single family”). And that has as much to do with associated transportation emissions as the size and efficiency of your home.
The implication is that if more suburbanites opted to move out of their low-density detached homes and into walkable, mixed-use urban communities (or if we retrofitted suburbia to better resemble such places), right there we’d be on our way to taking a real whack at carbon emissions.
From the study “Implications of global climate change for housing, human settlements and public health“:
Global climate change has profound implications for human societies. The present—ecologically unsustainable–trajectory of human development fails to provide for the basic needs of a substantial fraction of the global population, while diminishing the prospects for future generations. Human-caused climate change has already begun to affect weather patterns, physical and biological phenomena, and vulnerable human communities. Because the social processes of production and consumption have their own momentum, and because carbon dioxide has a long atmospheric lifetime, further climate change is inevitable over the coming century, even allowing for the adoption of mitigation measures. This situation implies that we should also try to reduce, and where possible to prevent, the adverse effects of climate changes by planned adaptation.
Note: I currently own a home outside of Seattle’s city limits, so yes there’s that. However, I owned a home in the city limits at one time and have rented in four of the city’s neighborhoods over a 14-year period. That said, this is not a NIMBY issue. All of us will be living in more-dense, more-compact neighborhoods (including the one I currently live in, which is also dealing with growth pressure) when the oceans rise and droughts push people into farther into the northern hemisphere.
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1go0yg5
Neighborhoods built around single-family housing are ecologically unsustainable in a world increasingly challenged by climate change.
So, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray was right to seek more density in those neighborhoods. Compromising single-family zones to allow more multi-family housing (however mis-judged or inaccurately the idea was portrayed in the media), is the future of how we will live with each other.
Murray — who has since backed down and so is now wrong — wanted that density to lower housing costs and improve diversity (of all kinds) in the city. He was probably right about that, too. In fact, many of us who currently own single-family homes, and those who threw a fit at the idea of condos moving in next door, will eventually be priced out of our homes by masses of newcomers wealthier than we are. (See San Francisco)
But that’s the weakest argument (however good it might be) for changing the ideology around how and where we live. It’s a concept change that has to happen: We have to shift from the ideal of palatial homes spread out from each other to living in dense neighborhoods where everything we need is within walking distance.
Oh sure, you say. More chest beating about climate change … everything is causing climate change.
Well, the fact is that climate change is being driven by human produced CO2 and dense cities do far far better at reducing our venting of CO2 into the atmosphere than single-family home neighborhoods (a.k.a suburbs).
Click for larger view: From Growing Wealthier: Smart Growth, Climate Change and Prosperity. Center for Clean Air Policy 2011
According to a 2014 study by UC Berkeley researchers, as stated in a news release:
“… population-dense cities contribute less greenhouse-gas emissions per person than other areas of the country, but these cities’ extensive suburbs essentially wipe out the climate benefits. Dominated by emissions from cars, trucks and other forms of transportation, suburbs account for about 50 percent of all household emissions – largely carbon dioxide – in the United States.”
A key finding of the UC Berkeley study is that suburbs account for half of all household greenhouse gas emissions, even though they account for less than half the U.S. population. The average carbon footprint of households living in the center of large, population-dense urban cities is about 50 percent below average, while households in distant suburbs are up to twice the average.
“Metropolitan areas look like carbon footprint hurricanes, with dark green, low-carbon urban cores surrounded by red, high-carbon suburbs,” said Christopher Jones, a doctoral student working with Kammen in the Energy and Resources Group. “Unfortunately, while the most populous metropolitan areas tend to have the lowest carbon footprint centers, they also tend to have the most extensive high-carbon footprint suburbs.”
The researchers also point out, however, that density alone isn’t the key. As our neighborhoods become more dense, the infrastructure has to be there to get us out of our cars as well as into green homes.
Increasing population density alone, for example, appears not to be a very effective strategy for reducing emissions. A 10-fold increase in population density in central cities corresponds to only 25 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions, and “high carbon suburbanization results as an unintended side effect,” Jones said.
Nevertheless, multifamily density is an important part of not only keeping some affordable housing in the city, but also for creating a new housing ideology for a world drastically changed by global warming and the desperate need to drastically reduce our production of carbon.
It doesn’t solve the problem to buy a hybrid and retrofit your house if all of that takes place 20 miles from your job. You’d still consume more energy (“suburban single family green”) than an urban household without the latest green tech (“urban single family”). And that has as much to do with associated transportation emissions as the size and efficiency of your home.
The implication is that if more suburbanites opted to move out of their low-density detached homes and into walkable, mixed-use urban communities (or if we retrofitted suburbia to better resemble such places), right there we’d be on our way to taking a real whack at carbon emissions.
From the study “Implications of global climate change for housing, human settlements and public health“:
Global climate change has profound implications for human societies. The present—ecologically unsustainable–trajectory of human development fails to provide for the basic needs of a substantial fraction of the global population, while diminishing the prospects for future generations. Human-caused climate change has already begun to affect weather patterns, physical and biological phenomena, and vulnerable human communities. Because the social processes of production and consumption have their own momentum, and because carbon dioxide has a long atmospheric lifetime, further climate change is inevitable over the coming century, even allowing for the adoption of mitigation measures. This situation implies that we should also try to reduce, and where possible to prevent, the adverse effects of climate changes by planned adaptation.
Note: I currently own a home outside of Seattle’s city limits, so yes there’s that. However, I owned a home in the city limits at one time and have rented in four of the city’s neighborhoods over a 14-year period. That said, this is not a NIMBY issue. All of us will be living in more-dense, more-compact neighborhoods (including the one I currently live in, which is also dealing with growth pressure) when the oceans rise and droughts push people into farther into the northern hemisphere.
Jake Ellison can be reached at 206-448-8334 or jakeellison@seattlepi.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jake_News. Also, swing by and *LIKE* his page on Facebook.
If Google Plus is your thing, check out our science coverage here.
from The Big Science Blog http://ift.tt/1go0yg5
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