"Move to the city and reduce your carbon footprint by 70%"

[CreekDog]

I'm not posting this as something you "need to" do. I'm posting it to show a good way to.

Often in our country, we focus on the energy efficiency of things we have, without looking at them holistically.

While it's great to have energy efficient appliances, heating/cooling systems and vehicles, it may surprise some people that urbanites living in smaller, attached dwellings without cars often have a smaller carbon footprint than the suburbanite with energy efficient air conditioning, heating, appliances, a Prius and a much larger house and longer commute.

City living is on average, greener than not.

Move to the city and reduce your carbon footprint by 70%
Study shows that moving to an urban environment may be the single greenest thing you can do.

If you’re working to reduce your carbon footprint and live in a rural or suburban area, perhaps you should consider moving to the city. It could reduce your transportation carbon emissions by 70 percent, according to data recently added to Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology's Housing and Transportation Affordability Index.

"Cities are more location-efficient – meaning key destinations are closer to where people live and work,” said Scott Bernstein, CNT’s president. “They require less time, money, fuel and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel needs ... so residents of cities and compact communities generate less CO2 per household than people who live in more dispersed communities, like many suburbs."

The CNT has created maps of 55 U.S. metropolitan areas including Chicago, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta, showing the amount of CO2 emitted per household from transportation. Households in urban centers generate roughly 0 to 5.1 metric tons, while rural households generate 8.6 metric tons and up.


http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/move-to-the-city-and-reduce-your-carbon-footprint-by-70

[silverweb]

1. A primary reason I live in the city.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Everything is within easy access and no car needed!

[CreekDog]

5. it's why retirement communities have it all mixed up --retirees are often better off in a city

where community, shopping, services are available to those that don't and/or cannot drive.

[silverweb]

10. Yup.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I've fought the necessity of having a car for years now and adjusted my lifestyle so that I don't need one. Living in a beautiful, green, walkable city, where everything's readily available is my ideal.

[patrice]

2. K&R

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Do High-Density, Urban Areas Really Have a Lower Carbon Footprint?

http://www.ecology.com/2011/06/29/high-density-urban-areas-carbon-footprint/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Do High-Density, Urban Areas Really Have a Lower Carbon Footprint?[/font]

By Bob Petz, June 29, 2011

[font size=3]A recent study published at Environmental Research Letters challenges the commonly held belief that high-density urban areas produce fewer carbon emissions per capita than less dense rural areas.

Analyzing the carbon footprint of eleven urban areas in Finland’s two largest metropolitan areas, Jukka Heinonen and Seppo Junnila of Aalto University found that population density had a low, if not insignificant relationship to carbon emissions per capita. Instead, they found level of income, and its corresponding level of consumption, to be the more significant factors.

What sets this study apart from most previous research is the particular hybrid life cycle assessment methodology Heinonen and Junnila employed.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) attempts to assign the carbon footprint of producing, transporting, maintaining and disposing of a good or service to the consumer. For example, the environmental impact of manufacturing a piece of furniture in a rural factory is not attributed to the factory, but to the consumer who purchases the item. The logic behind LCA is straightforward: the amount of carbon emissions a factory produces is directly related to the amount of goods or services it produces, which in turn is determined by consumer demand. No demand, no emissions.

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[CreekDog]

4. if you moved to an apartment in the city, smaller than your current house

and the apartment was attached, not unattached, and instead of driving, you took public transportation while was heavily used by others, and you did much of your shopping on foot, or by transit.

and because you had a smaller dwelling, which took less energy to heat, less energy to cool and because it's attached, lost less energy than a larger attached house.

your carbon footprint would be smaller.

this is not rocket science.

it's not saying that merely moving to a city guarantees a lower carbon footprint --but the lifestyle changes allowed by living in a large city often trump the practical changes available to one living in a suburb or exurb.

this is not complicated. read my post.

[silverweb]

8. +1

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. I understand the principle, it’s not a new idea. It’s appealing, because it’s counterintuitive.

You may want to read the study I referenced.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014018

[font face=Serif][font size=3]…

Interestingly, the results show that the type of the urban structure, whether a dense metropolitan core with apartment buildings or a less dense suburban area with primarily detached housing, has quite a small effect on the carbon emissions. Whereas some earlier studies have shown substantial differences between the core and suburbs (e.g. |29, 32, 37|), no clear pattern between the different types of urban structures was found in this study. The reasons found are twofold. Primarily, after the inclusion of communal building energy to the energy consumption per capita, the differences in the energy consumption and thus in the emissions between the building types decrease radically. Second, even the slight growth in energy-related carbon consumption found in the Tampere metropolitan area in RCT, compared to the denser metropolitan core and UCT, is overruled by the high correlation of income and carbon consumption.

In the Helsinki metropolitan area, the emissions related to energy use in the two cities around Helsinki are 3.4 tons CO2-ekv in Vantaa and 4.4 tons in Espoo, whereas in the metropolitan center, Helsinki, the figure is 3.7 tons according to the hybrid model. In the Tampere area, the pattern is the same, 3.0 and 4.0 tons CO2-ekv emissions in UCT and RCT, and 3.2 tons in Tampere. This result would imply that the high density of the city structure is not necessarily an obligatory precondition in creating low-carbon urban structures. On the other hand, the living space per capita would seem to grow as the density of the city diminishes. This has a reverse effect on the carbon consumption, but it is insignificant compared to the effect of income.

The second pattern, complying with several earlier studies (in Finland e.g. |28, 32|), was the relation between the density and the emissions from private transport. In both metropolitan areas, the emissions from private transport are higher in the surrounding areas than in the center city. However, the effect on the overall carbon consumption per capita is quite weak when all the emissions related to driving are calculated, including car manufacture, deliveries and maintenance of vehicles. According to the hybrid model, the share of fuel combustion of all all emissions related to private transport is 50–70%, the rest being dominated by emissions related to car manufacture and maintenance. Thus, growth in trip generation due to a decline in the density of the city structure would have a relatively minor effect on the overall carbon consumption.

Third, the denser metropolitan centers seem to support more effective public transport systems, as the use of public transport is more common in both the center cities and in the surrounding areas. In addition, rail connections would seem to influence the use of public transport, as seen in the higher use of public options overall in the Helsinki metropolitan area, when compared to Tampere and its surrounding areas (table 3). And, as they have lower carbon intensities than bus connections |22, 30|, they increase further the carbon mitigation effect of public transportation as an alternative for private transport.

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[CreekDog]

11. it sounds like you're disagreeing with the concept though

based on a study done using Finland.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. “based on a study done using Finland”

Huh? What does the fact that the study was done in Finland have to do with it?

The key to the study is that you may need to expand your horizons.

All other things being equal, living in a small attached dwelling may use less energy. Now (for just one example) what is the carbon footprint of your food (how many people in the city grow their own food?)

[CreekDog]

13. don't play games with me --I use Europe as an example all the time on DU

but in terms of energy usage and development differences between exurban, suburban and urban, my post was aimed at American patterns, American usages and they are quite different from those found in Europe.

our suburban and exurban homes are far larger, we use less renewables, more energy for water, etc.

i have posted again and again that people should look around the world for relevant examples that help us do things.

but that doesn't mean that an example in Finland related to their development patterns and density and makes mathematical conclusions about them --is as applicable as my first post on this subject in this thread.

is that so complicated? yes, apparently it is.

[cprise]

14. Hmmm

The original article is about US energy usage, and what you posted is about Finland (which may be more representative on a global scale). I do not think they apply to each other and it seems almost obvious that Finland does not have the suburban sprawl that the US does.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. I'll stay in the country, but walk carefully on tiptoes.

The city just isn't for me.

[CreekDog]

7. I didn't ask you to

Did I judge you for not living in a