This doesn’t look good for us. Increase transit use or bikes isn’t going to be easy in these kinds of environments. Therefore, decreasing oil demand in the US will not be easy or much fun, but, of course, totally necessary.
Some commenters suggested the comparison isn’t fair, especially to NYC since it includes the suburbs. But, in terms of reducing oil and carbon use excluding the the suburbs makes no sense, as they’re the problem. As this graphic comparison shows.
Click image for for full size images
This map, via Paul Krugman, pretty clearly shows that the low density ‘burbs are, in fact, the gas suckers, the percentages are increased fuel costs as a percentage of income in Sydney. (Pun sort of intended).
Click image for for full size images
Another commenter felt it wasn’t fair because mid-sized European cities weren’t included. I’m not sure how Bertaud chose the cities on his chart, but I doubt including Manchester or Frankfurt would have the US position look much better. Because, the point isn’t US bashing, it’s that climate change and high oil prices pose a real problem for us, given how we’ve organized our society.
2. Change zoning to allow for denser development in urban areas
3. Dramatically increase public transportation in urban areas — improve range, frequency, reliability, and comfort while maintaining price.
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p>End result: commuting will suck, driving will suck, and people will move in to the cities. Or, they’ll be ghost towns. Timing is everything I suppose.
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p>I am a bit skeptical. Buenos Aires didn’t feel substantially more dense than Chicago, and New York City certainly doesn’t seem less dense than Budapest. Part of the problem with studies like this is where one draws the ring around the urban center. Look at how New York is represented in the second map — it seems to include parts of New Jersey, Connecticut, Long Island, the five boroughs, and Westchester County. Draw the circle just around Manhattan Island and see what you get. Then include Queens and Brooklyn. Then, add The Bronx and Staten Island. See what I mean?
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p>The image for Shanghai is really tight — as if it’s surrounded by city walls and then rice paddies. It’s not. Sprawl surrounds Shanghai in many directions in the form of tiny shacks housing the not-quite-homeless. That’s not on their map though.
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p>This isn’t to say that US cities are dense. They’re not, and I’d like to see them become more dense. Still, choosing how big an area constitutes a city is a bit of a dodgy art.
What exactly is one averaging? New York is actually a great example. The city itself is plenty dense enough for public transit, and most New Yorkers I know (including the ones in Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx) don’t have cars. You can make the numbers look any way you want to by expanding or contracting the area. You could draw your area around the densest 5-million population area in New York and you’d still have a bigger city than some of the others on the chart.
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p>You’re right, suburbs are the “problem” (when optimizing for low-gas commutes), but these averages are contrived and don’t show anything useful about that problem. The one that’s useful is the last one, which compares Sydney’s suburbs to its urban areas (though it’s hard to see the relative populations on that map, so it’s somewhat misleading).
That we are obliged to force people into densely populated areas? Pray tell—-who will win the prize and be forced into the cities—the poor/indiget/working classes?
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p>Who will make these decisions? Sometimes people here begin to sound more like VI Lenin than VI Lenin. This is still the USA although our supreme court in their infinite wisdom have expanded the use of eminent domain to allow government to take private property for the “greater good”.
That is likely how people will be forced into cities, We take your home and land for “our” own good. I can’t think of an easier way to incite another revolution.
nice to meet you.
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p>The only use of the word “force”, prior to this post, is in yours.
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p>Spending oodles of tax dollars on highways led to the suburbs. Yip, the government used force to collect taxes, and spent it so those who weren’t so “poor/indiget/working class” could move to the burbs.
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p>Me, I’d rather the government use oodles of tax dollars on public transit in urban areas. Yip, the government using force to collect taxes, and spend it so those who are “poor/indiget/working class” can move within the city more cheaply, quickly, and safely.
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p>Public policy? Sure. Force? Not so much.
Our Precious Lifestyle is sacred, and it sounds like you’ve forgotten some fundamental dogma. Remember:
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p>The choices people make about where and how to live are not in response to economic signals. They arise spontaneously from the fundamental fabric of space time.
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p>There are no hidden subsidies that distort land-use or energy choices, and anyway if there were and they started to dry up that would be “forcing” people to do stuff.
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p>Woe unto he or she who says the free lunch ain’t free.
here’s a much worse one: exurbs.
Edge City, by Joel Garreau.
To the quality of life in Mumbai. Density is, after all, the entire and complete measure of quality of life. Nothing else matters.
Barcelona? Prague? Buenos Aires? Budapest? London?
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p>All great towns. All with high density, jobs, and loaded with culture. All towns that you can do quite nicely without a car as it turns out.
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p>I’ve never been to Mumbai, and I certainly don’t know how much of their quality of life is a function of the city and how much is a function of their national government, national resources, foreign policy, etc.
Yes, as to London and Prague. My only point is that density of cities is one of many things that can impact quality of life. Yet somehow, with one map, we have been presented with a metric that suddenly is the be all and end all of urban planning. I doubt it.
Nobody but you suggested that it was “a metric that suddenly is the be all and end all of urban planning.” I suspect that nobody but you would have even considered that idea.
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p>It’s a couple of data points — enough to spark interest and debate. Don’t make it out to be more than it is so that you can rail against it.
is an interesting case. I remember being there last summer. There are very few cars, but a lot of mopeds. Everybody there seems to drive one. If you’re staying in just one area of the city, especially near La Rambla, it’s very easy to get around by foot. But if you want to get across town, the subway isn’t great as far as I could recall, but perhaps that was simply because I wasn’t used to it. In any event, I wonder if part of the solution is to make the city and suburban areas easier to get around with lighter cars (like those smart cars), mopeds, and other such vehicles.
by reducing the amount of parking. One way to go further is to require via zoning even more parking for bicycles as well as parking for 2-wheeled-motor-vehicles.
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p>Another way to do it is to set mins and maxes not for number of parking spaces but for total square feet of parking. This will encourage lot owners to squeeze cars in — including using different parking rates for different sized vehicles and encouraging more moped parking.
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p>While I suspect that the price of gas is one factor for two wheeled motor vehicles, I suspect another major factor is one of space. In dense areas, there just isn’t as much parking, and people therefore choose to have a moped since they can find a place to park it, vs. a car which can’t be parked.
I wrote my master’s Capstone paper on Chapter 40R the Commonwealth’s Smart Growth progam.
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p>I have also had the pleasure of being a candidate for muncipal office and increased density is the last thing people want to hear.
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p>It is a a tough nut to crack.
Yes in order to “solve” the problem of global warming the “solution” is to pack the population into controllable carbon trading gulags/mega cities is the term I have seen.
Big Al’s carbon trading Wall Street diverts the focus away from alternative energy like solar and wind and promotes suburban users to go out and shoot Bambi to feed the family or embrace the Amish lifestyle and totally reduce “your carbon footprint”. All the while speculators in oil future hedge funds are making a killing and laughing all the way to the bank.