The Antiplanner

Compact Cities Won’t Save the Planet

15th October 2009

Compact Cities Won’t Save the Planet

posted in News commentary, Regional planning |

Several recent reports from the smart-growth crowd have argued that U.S. cities must be rebuilt to higher densities in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Antiplanner will have more to say about these reports in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, a new analysis from MIT concludes that “even moderate carbon-reduction policies now can substantially lower the risk of future climate change.” However, the report adds, “quick, global emissions reductions would be required in order to provide a good chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius.”

That let’s compact development out as a solution. As the Moving Cooler report makes clear, it will take many decades before compact development has a significant impact on carbon dioxide emissions. The report considers a wide range of emissions-reduction policies, and most of them would result in immediate declines in carbon emissions. But even the most aggressive compact-city policies would have a negligible effect for two decades or more. (See table 4.2 in the full report, which unfortunately is not available for free download.)

There is no consensus among planners and economists about whether compact development will even have a significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. Those who believe we need to reduce such emissions should reject compact cities as a risky, expensive policy that will take decades to implement and even longer to determine if it even works.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under News commentary, Regional planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 6 responses to “Compact Cities Won’t Save the Planet”

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  1. 1 On October 15th, 2009, Frank said:

    There is no consensus among planners and economists about whether compact development will even have a significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions.

    Does it really matter? Have we only X years to save the planet? Tipping points! Point of no return! The sky is falling!

    Stories about the debunking of the climate hockey stick and the UN pulling Wikipedia graphs from its climate report should cause the most fundamentalist AGWers to raise an eyebrow.

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 6:25 am

  2. 2 On October 15th, 2009, Dan said:

    Stories about the debunking of the…hockey stick

    [snork]

    Nonetheless, Randal, you are deceiving your readers. Why must you deceive to have an argument? Can’t you just lay out the facts to support your opinion, instead of misstate what your link asserts?

    No one (nobody), zero people are claiming compact development will “save the planet”, nor does your link claim, assert, imply such. But by gum, you’ve done a heckuva job, Randy, destroying that strawman!!!

    DS

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 7:51 am

  3. 3 On October 15th, 2009, bennett said:

    Dan,

    Agreed. Sometimes I wan’t to comment, but then I get so overwhelmed with the mischaracterization of ideas round here I can’t figure out where to start. I guess it’s that compact development is part of a solution to many different problems. I like your buckshot analogy yesterday, and think it applies today as well (not only with carbon reduction, but population growth, land preservation, food security etc.).

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 8:15 am

  4. 4 On October 15th, 2009, ws said:

    ROT: “There is no consensus among planners and economists about whether compact development will even have a significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. Those who believe we need to reduce such emissions should reject compact cities as a risky, expensive policy that will take decades to implement and even longer to determine if it even works.”

    ws:There’s no consensus, but you’ve already made up your mind anyways, noted by your jihad on transit and CO2 emissions. And of course any climate mitigation is going to take years if not decades to have an impact, Randall.

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 11:11 am

  5. 5 On October 15th, 2009, lgrattan said:

    Here in San Jose a new General Plan is being drawn in a process to last 2+ years. (2040 Plan)
    Smart Growth will be the answer. Most new housing will be adjacent to Transit, not Transportation.
    The Urban Growth Boundary responsible for housing costs (and housing bubble) can only be expanded when doing a new General Plan every 10 years or so.
    The transportation agency (Valley Transportation Authority) VTA Plan will trump and control future development in the city. A local judge just rulled that VTA is the worst transportaion agency in the US. Should we select VTA as our Partner as with transportation or our Controler as with Transit?
    Any ideas?

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 12:35 pm

  6. 6 On October 15th, 2009, Dan said:

    Any ideas?

    You’d have to overturn AB32 to do anything different with land use – good luck with that in a state with so many geological hazards preventing willy-nilly development anyway, and so many people projected to in-migrate worsening air and water quality (although the public school system’s decline as a result of Prop 13 et al. may slow that pop. increase).

    You may want to hire someone to audit VTA to see if there is a way to get decent leadership in there.

    DS

    posted on October 15th, 2009 at 2:10 pm

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