Housing under the Green New Deal

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal proposal didn’t say much about housing, other than it should be “affordable” and “adequate.” However, Architectural Digest has filled in the blanks to show what “a ‘Green New Deal’ would look like for architecture.”

Surprise! It’s New Urbanism, that is, three- to five-story apartment buildings, often with ground-floor shops. At least, that’s what the photos in the article show.

The text of the article says that buildings that “receive energy along a one-way artery from a faraway grid” would be replaced by buildings that are “mini power plants that can not only produce enough energy to supply their own needs, but also fuel vehicles and send excess energy back to the grid.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but why did the editors choose to use Greenwich Village-like photos to illustrate the article?

Within the environmental and urban planning communities, it is an article of faith that multifamily housing is superior to single-family housing. But that’s simply not true. According to table 2.1.11 of the Department of Energy’s Buildings Energy Data Book, single-family attached housing (row houses) use 10 percent more energy per square foot than single-family detached homes, while multifamily housing uses 27 to 71 percent more. The construction of any buildings taller than three stories also uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gas emissions because of the steel and concrete they require.

The cost of such buildings is also higher. As previously pointed out here, three-story housing (typical for row houses) costs about 30 percent more, per square foot, than one- and two-story, while five-story housing (the type preferred by New Urbanists) can cost three to four times as much. Meanwhile, turning a standard single-family home into a zero-energy home adds, at the time of construction, just 10 percent to the cost.
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Retrofitting existing single-family homes to become zero-energy homes would cost more: at least $50,000 per home and in some cases much more. But it would still be less expensive to retrofit such homes than to build multifamily housing that costs three or four times as much as single-family homes.

Thus, the best way to meet the goals of the Green New Deal, which include housing that is both affordable and uses zero fossil fuels, is to greatly expand production of energy-efficient single-family homes and immediately cease construction of energy-wasteful and expensive multi-family homes. That will mean, of course, abolishing the urban-growth boundaries and other growth-management tools that make housing expensive.

While some will object that this will force people to drive more, they’ll all be driving electric cars, so what will it matter? Besides, research shows that the effect on driving of putting people in multifamily housing is “too small to be useful” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Given that the data support single-family housing as the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, will Ocasia-Cortez or her supporters come out in favor of such policies? Don’t count on it. Since so much else about the Green New Deal is based on fantasy, it is highly unlikely that whatever the Green New Deal does about housing would include abolishing growth boundaries and expanding zero-energy single-family home construction.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

12 Responses to Housing under the Green New Deal

  1. LazyReader says:

    The last “Green” initiative for housing we’ve already seen was the make it right, homes in New Orleans folllowing Hurricane Katrina. The houses were made using biodegradable materials, while that’s noble the houses did exactly that, they biodegraded. I.e. Rotted in just 2 years. Biodegradeability is fine for throwaway products, not houses.

  2. FrancisKing says:

    “Within the environmental and urban planning communities, it is an article of faith that multifamily housing is superior to single-family housing. But that’s simply not true. According to table 2.1.11 of the Department of Energy’s Buildings Energy Data Book, single-family attached housing (row houses) use 10 percent more energy per square foot than single-family detached homes, while multifamily housing uses 27 to 71 percent more. The construction of any buildings taller than three stories also uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gas emissions because of the steel and concrete they require.”

    Per square foot? That’s an odd way to calculate it. So, if I have a building which has double the floor area, but which uses 10% less energy per square foot, this is environmentally friendly?

  3. FrancisKing says:

    “Since so much else about the Green New Deal is based on fantasy…”

    It always has been.

    Year 2009. Someone want to expand an airport. The environmentalists object. Whereas the current number of flights is about right, the expansion would be a bad idea.

    The airport is expanded.

    Year 2019. Someone want to expand the same airport. The environmentalists object. Whereas the current number of flights is about right, the expansion would be a bad idea.

    So now the number of flights in the 2009 case is about right?

    A bad argument.

  4. paul says:

    For those of us realistically trying to prevent or mitigate climate change Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal makes no sense and she her supporters no idea whatsoever what they are talking about. The only realistic way to reduce greenhouse gas production while maintaining are current or better standard of living is to rigorously research and promote energy production at the lowest cost per tonne of carbon dioxide produced. Any claims of greenhouse gas reduction without a cost per tonne are meaningless. In the US we produce about 20 tonnes CO2 equivalent per capita per year. At a price of $50 per tonne reduction this is about $1000 per capita. As a society we can certainly afford no more than this. Therefore any cost per tonne of greenhouse gas reduction has to be below this. Immediately ask anyone with claims of greenhouse gas reduction what the cost per tonne reduction is. If they don’t know then their claims must be considered false until reasonable cost estimates have shown their plan to be below $50 per tonne reduction.

  5. paul says:

    I should noted that the McKinsey report of 2007 has a good cost reduction graph for greenhouse gas production here:

    https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/a-cost-curve-for-greenhouse-gas-reduction

    Note there are many energy efficiency steps that can be taken now to reduce greenhouse gas production at negative cost. That is money is saved by producing less greenhouse gases. This is where we as a society should start to reduce greenhouse gases, not on non-cost effective fanciful projects such as high speed rail.

  6. JimKarlock says:

    “For those of us realistically trying to prevent or mitigate climate change”
    Does this mean you found actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing serious global warming?
    Please share it with us.
    Please do not make these common errors:
    –Evidence of warming IS NOT evidence that man’s CO2 is the cause.
    –Warming is NOT evidence of its cause
    –Unusual weather occurrences are not evidence of its cause
    –Correlation is not causation
    –An expert’s assertion is not evidence.
    –Majority belief is not evidence
    –Government assertions are not evidence.
    –“What else could it be” is not evidence
    –Polls are not evidence
    –Climate models are not evidence

  7. CapitalistRoader says:

    The only realistic way to reduce greenhouse gas production while maintaining are current or better standard of living is to rigorously research and promote energy production at the lowest cost per tonne of carbon dioxide produced.

    #1 Nuclear
    #2 Natural Gas

  8. forastero says:

    This obsession with high density housing. I don’t want to live in a high density development. I own my home and wish to remain a homeowner. I don’t want to rely on others to fix the furnace, water heater, stove, or clear the drain. I don’t want ‘rules’ of how I choose to live. I don’t want neighbors above, below, and next to me. I don’t want my housing costs to escalate on an annual basis and I certainly don’t want to be told I have to move.

    I’m concerned that the next generation will not become property owners and will feel they have no dog in any municipal or county fight. Much easier to raise taxes when nobody cares. High density housing = less individuality. Isn’t that the ultimate goal of the left?

  9. FrancisKing: What’s odd about calculations per square foot? The planners like to claim that dense housing is more affordable and energy efficient. When you look at calculations per square foot you find what the planners mean is that dense housing is more affordable and energy efficient only if the dwelling units are considerable smaller than the average single-family home. If you really want to save money and energy, build smaller single-family homes, not multifamily.

  10. CapitalistRoader says:

    The Green Leap Forward seems to have made an impression on Cocaine Mitch:

    Mitch McConnell is going to force the Senate to vote on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal

    “I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal, and we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate to give everybody an opportunity to go on record,” McConnell told reporters.

    Will the title of Troll Master switch off between McConnell and Trump for the next two years?

  11. Behindyou says:

    There’s not enough time to go over each of the author’s claims, but there’s one he repeats over and over and it takes about ten seconds to realize why it’s wrong: the idea that that apartments are less energy-efficient than single-family houses.

    This survey is from 2005, but it’s the first thing that came up googling so it will have to do.
    https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2005/c&e/summary/pdf/tableus1part1.pdf

    In page 2 you can see that indeed single-family detached homes consume less energy per square foot than attached single-family homes, which in turn consume less than apartments.

    Go to page 3 and you’ll realize why: the bigger a home is, the less energy it consumes *per square-foot*. The difference is massive – a big home can easily be three times as “energy-efficient” as a small one. So according to O’Toole, the really efficient thing is to build enormous homes!

    And of course, since detached single-family homes are three times bigger than apartments, it’s a necessity that the former will be more “efficient” per square-foot. Looking at table 1, apartments on average range from 500 to 999 square feet, and housing of this size (across all types) consumes 66.4 thousand BTU per square-foot. But apartments in buildings of 5 or more housing units (see page 2) consume only 62.4 mmBTU. So the evidence suggests the opposite of what O’Toole says: apartments in large buildings are more energy-efficient than the average housing unit for their size.

    (Admittedly, the case cannot be settled by that data alone because there are other housing types – chiefly ‘apartments’ in buildings with only 2-4 housing units).

    There are other issues: apartments and single-family homes may on average have different ages, be located in different regions, etc. A serious analysis would have to take these issues into account.

    Even so, the evidence that for the biggest energy use (space heating) apartments are in fact more efficient is quite conclusive. Space heating makes up a much smaller share of energy expenditures for apartments than for houses; there is no reason to believe apartments are less efficient than houses in other energy uses, so the reason must be that houses are less efficient than apartments in space heating.
    https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37433

    The other forehead slapper is the reason apartments are more energy-efficient than equally-sized homes for space, but not e.g. for water heating. Well, as EIA says, apartments insulate each other!

  12. prk166 says:


    The last “Green” initiative for housing we’ve already seen was the make it right, homes in New Orleans folllowing Hurricane Katrina. The houses were made using biodegradable materials, while that’s noble the houses did exactly that, they biodegraded. I.e. Rotted in just 2 years. Biodegradeability is fine for throwaway products, not houses.
    ” ~ LazyReader

    It still amazes me how many people are taking back when I point out to them that the wood their SFH is made out is literally rotting as we speak. There are a ton of things we can do to slow that process down. But at the end of the day, it’s a dead plant and it’s going to degrade to the point it needs to be replaced.

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