Do Sustainable Cities Have a Future?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

edited...

A "green revolution" is burgeoning in America's cities and towns.

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...heightened interest in hybrid cars and renewed focus on wind farms, solar energy, biofuels, and other renewables; a burgeoning "smart-growth" movement in our states and regions; worry on the health front about sedentary lifestyles, obesity, loss of natural connections; green roofs and strong revival of urban parks; and breakthroughs to pinpoint waste and pollution in our great infrastructure systems, enabled by more sophisticated geographic information system (GIS) technology.

If the new, green, urban alchemy has an epicenter, it's Chicago. Once the embodiment of smoky factories and belching locomotives, the erstwhile City of the Big Shoulders has led the new green wave with beds of flowers and blossoming pots hung from new downtown street lamps.

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Says Chicago Alderman Mary Ann Smith: "We're creating places people want to be, not places people want to flee." In fact, Chicago has registered America's most dramatic "back-to-the-city" movement, with tens of thousands of new downtown residents.

Cities Taking the Lead

From Philadelphia to Seattle, Boston to San Diego, city officials agree that green urban settings are a critical draw in an era when highly educated, mobile professional workers -- the economic gold of the times -- gravitate to attractive, welcoming, and healthy places.

What's more, claim the apostles of green, property tax yields from homes and apartments near parks are significantly higher. Tree-lined streets alone increase property values some 15 percent.

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The idea is that with less auto dependency and easier access to public transportation and jobs, low-income families will have to spend much less on transportation than they now do (on average, 40 cents of every dollar of income at the poverty line). Fewer workers will be forced into long commutes and even more encouraged to walk, with ricochet benefits in saving energy, reducing obesity, and improving overall health.

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A Local Response to a Global Challenge

The U.S. Conference of Mayors last June voted to call for sharp reductions in fossil fuel use in all buildings -- both for construction as well as heating and cooling. Their stated goal is to make the nation's building stock "carbon-neutral," using no more fuels made from oil, coal or natural gas, by 2030. The stakes are immense: Buildings account for 48 percent of all U.S. energy consumption (well ahead of transportation at 27 percent and industry at 25 percent).

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The idea is to adapt city parks, roadways, lawns, and yards with swales and other systems that can absorb and slowly filter water. The vision: to make all of Philadelphia into a kind of great, green sponge that handles its runoff more naturally and assures clean and reliable water for fishing, swimming, and drinking.

Today's roster of green initiatives knows practically no limits. It includes massive tree replanting efforts; conversion of hundreds of miles of once-industrial urban waterfronts to parks and greenways and millions of acres of protected farmlands and forests; concerted efforts to build green schools in which children learn better; and campaigns to expand locally based agriculture and farmers' markets and decrease the pollution from trucks carrying foods over thousands of miles.

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Out across the nation, there's fast-growing demand for public transit to save energy and transit-oriented development to curb sprawl. The move for major regional rail systems has now reached far beyond New York and Chicago, Boston and San Francisco to traditionally auto-dependent cities like Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Houston, and even Los Angeles.

Terminal Consumption?

Yet however welcome, even startling, the new developments seem, the somber truth is that the great ocean liner U.S.S. Consumption has so far shifted its direction barely a degree. With 4.6 percent of the world's population, the United States continues to burn a quarter of the globe's fossil fuels and to emit 25 percent of its greenhouse gases.

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Single-occupant auto commuting continues to grow, and carpooling and walking keep declining. Notwithstanding the decade-long push for "smart-growth" policies to protect the natural watersheds, the open fields and forests around our towns and cities, any check of existing zoning around the nation shows immense tracts of land zoned for added development.

"You can't deal with sustainability [and] climate change if we insist on covering our open lands with one-, two-, three-acre house plots," notes Robert Yaro, president of the New York-area Regional Plan Association.

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There's growing market acceptance of new green product lines, combined with the rapid growth of new clean technology funds. Green neighborhood and city planning, green water and power systems are on the rise. As a green economy emerges and proves its staying power, the momentum toward change will surely rise.

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Green value sounds and is environmental. But it's so much more. It also stands for connectivity, intelligence, smart systems, and creating a 21st-century world that has a chance of being truly sustainable.

© 2007 by The American Prospect, Inc.

Neal Peirce's weekly column, focused on new developments in states, cities, and regions, is syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group. He is also chairman of the ">Citistates Group, a network of journalists and civic leaders focused on building sustainable 21st-century metropolitan regions.

[Dean iWait 0]

I'm guessing you meant to post this in off topic...?? You really need to get more sleep I think Steven.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'm all for green cities.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'm all for green cities.

I was surprised by this statistic - Buildings account for 48 percent of all U.S. energy consumption (well ahead of transportation at 27 percent and industry at 25 percent).

Also, have you heard much about fiber optic lighting that uses natural sunlight for buildings? I'm wondering how far off the technology is for it to be cost effective?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'm all for green cities.

I was surprised by this statistic - Buildings account for 48 percent of all U.S. energy consumption (well ahead of transportation at 27 percent and industry at 25 percent).

Also, have you heard much about fiber optic lighting that uses natural sunlight for buildings? I'm wondering how far off the technology is for it to be cost effective?

I read about that lighting system. Very cool.

Mondial is another company I read about. They install solar water heating systems. They are from Toronto and even in the winter they can heat water. One thing they do in install the system and sell hot water/heat to the business instead of having the business build it.

http://www.mondial-energy.com/howitworks.htm

[one...two...tree 2,762]

I'm all for green cities.

I was surprised by this statistic - Buildings account for 48 percent of all U.S. energy consumption (well ahead of transportation at 27 percent and industry at 25 percent).

Also, have you heard much about fiber optic lighting that uses natural sunlight for buildings? I'm wondering how far off the technology is for it to be cost effective?

I read about that lighting system. Very cool.

Mondial is another company I read about. They install solar water heating systems. They are from Toronto and even in the winter they can heat water. One thing they do in install the system and sell hot water/heat to the business instead of having the business build it.

http://www.mondial-energy.com/howitworks.htm

Back in the 70's, my parents bought a solar water heater that was mounted on the rooftop. I think they paid about $1,200 at the time but Pres. Carter had instituted a tax break that made it affordable. Ours was the first in the neighborhood and within a year, at least a dozen homes in the neighborhood had one as well. I know it saved them a lot of money in reduced electric bills.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I'm all for green cities.

I was surprised by this statistic - Buildings account for 48 percent of all U.S. energy consumption (well ahead of transportation at 27 percent and industry at 25 percent).

Also, have you heard much about fiber optic lighting that uses natural sunlight for buildings? I'm wondering how far off the technology is for it to be cost effective?

I read about that lighting system. Very cool.

Mondial is another company I read about. They install solar water heating systems. They are from Toronto and even in the winter they can heat water. One thing they do in install the system and sell hot water/heat to the business instead of having the business build it.

http://www.mondial-energy.com/howitworks.htm

Back in the 70's, my parents bought a solar water heater that was mounted on the rooftop. I think they paid about $1,200 at the time but Pres. Carter had instituted a tax break that made it affordable. Ours was the first in the neighborhood and within a year, at least a dozen homes in the neighborhood had one as well. I know it saved them a lot of money in reduced electric bills.

My dad always wanted one but we were too poor