Carbon Footprint of Cities

[bobthebuilder]

One of the big things that I think would do a world of good for this city, is easing the parking restriction on new developments, and i think many on here would agree. I was thrilled that the lovejoy wharf project is going 0 parking and I hope to see this happen more and more across the city. I believe this paves the way for more affordable housing, pushing people towards public transit, which will hopefully increase transit spending.

My main argument, is that with the proper infrastrucure cities can be incredibly efficient, and ultimately, better for the environment than suburbia. I recently came across this website via Curbed:NY, that I find massively interesting and wanted to share:

http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps

http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/08/shocker_nycs_carbon_footprint_is_smaller_than_the_suburbs.php

The biggest thing I find interesting is how rapidly the carbon footprint increases once you move outside of areas that are served by rapid transit. I'm mainly focusing on the NYC and Boston metro areas:

Boston:

NYC:

(disclaimer: I tried like hell to get these things nicely centered over each metro area, but it just wasn't happening. This was the best I could do.

I find the dramatic increase in carbon footprint between areas that are served by rapid transit and areas that are not, very interesting.

One thing I haven't really been able to wrap my head around with this map is how to account for density. Obviously, less density, more carbon footprint/houesehold. But in neighboring zip codes, where one is served by rapid transit and the other is not, you can still see a dramatic increase, and I assume these areas would have similar densities, or at least the difference wouldn't be as dramatic as the difference in carbon footprint.

In conclusion, (TL;DR) Cities are massively efficient, spend more on transit, require less parking, build taller structures.

 

[Matthew]

My problem with these maps is that I'm not entirely sure that they aren't just showing the effect of dividing some amount of pollution between the more people who happen to live in the more densely populated cities.

In other words, is this just a density map?

Presumably the researchers sorted this out, but I haven't had time to read deeply into it.

 

[bobthebuilder]

That was my concern, it seems to be relevent to density, but the point I was trying to make above is that there are adjacent area codes with a significant increase in carbon levels, and I wouldn't think that the density levels could be that drastically different.
But perhaps the public transit increases the density enough to cause this dramatic change, I'm not really sure, so that's why I posted it for discussion.

I would have liked to have seen a map for the total carbon footprint per area code as oppose of carbon footprint/household for each area code, but maybe that just kills the whole argument.

 

[fattony]

I think this map has much more to do with density and mixed-use development than with public transit. In a sense, public transit is a symptom of density.

Consider a large college campus, greater than about 30,000 students. People (students) live (in dorms and nearby apartments), work (attend class), eat (dining halls and nearby restaurants), and play (bars and entertainment venues near campus) in a walkable/bikeable area. Most don't use a car on a daily basis. Many don't even take a bus on a daily basis. The carbon footprint is low because the demand for transportation is low. Everything that the typical student wants and needs is close by. AND college campuses generally aren't very efficient with space - they achieve high density living even dominated by 3-4 story buildings, large lawns/quads, and lightly used large structures like stadiums and arenas.

Now, to scale the model to >100,000 people you need some transit, but only because it becomes difficult to satisfy the requirement to "live, work, and play" in a walkable area for households with multiple people. If we were all single w/o kids we could always just move to the neighborhood we work in (assuming all neighborhoods are equally balance for live/work/play). That is difficult to find one area for 2 working people or if you don't want to relocate your kids' school just because you changed job.

You can stretch all your transportation infrastructure - transit, parking, roads, etc - and lower you average carbon footprint per person - by lowering the demand for transportation overall. By stretch, I mean that we can accommodate a higher population without building any new infrastructure or burning any more fuel than we do at present. In general, new developments should be mixed-use and near existing infrastructure. In the case of unbalanced areas - like FiDi with all-work, little-play, even less-live - new development should generate only the elements that are under-represented and none of the dominant use.

So even density is not the whole story because you can have a lot of residences in one place, but all those people have to go someplace else to work and play. There is still high demand for transportation.

Mixed-use districts linked by transit - that's the ticket.

 

[bobthebuilder]

.....In general, new developments should be mixed-use and near existing infrastructure. In the case of unbalanced areas - like FiDi with all-work, little-play, even less-live - new development should generate only the elements that are under-represented and none of the dominant use.

I like this statement, all areas of a city should be mixed use. In the case of the financial district, I'd like to see new developments go mixed use as you said, with a repositioning of parts of buildings turning them into mixed use. I know that's easier said then done, but would be great to see strictly office buildings become mixed use.