- Joined
- Jun 4, 2012
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I stumbled across this the other day, and I thought it was rather interesting:
- From a Freakonomics podcast last year.
I could see this. There's a few other factors that aren't covered here as well - high density living within cities results in less habitat loss and fragmentation than suburban and rural living. That's important. It's also easier to supply infrastructure to a densely populated area than it is to supply infrastructure to areas that tend towards more sprawl. And cities support mass transit more efficiently than suburban and rural areas.
I’ve assembled data on carbon emissions associated with living in different parts of the country. And there are two facts, which I think are important, to come out of that. One of which is that people who live in cities do tend to emit significantly less carbon than people who live in the country, and this is controlling for income and controlling for family size. That’s coming mainly from driving, from the fact that there’s just a lot fewer carbon emissions associated with dense living. It’s not just the move to public transportation; it’s also the drivers within cities — they’re just driving much shorter distances. And then, of course, it’s because of much smaller homes.
The higher price of urban space means that people are living in smaller homes, even with the same family size. And that leads to lower electricity usage, lower home heating usage — and those are the facts that I think make cities seem, at least to my eyes, significantly greener.
- From a Freakonomics podcast last year.
I could see this. There's a few other factors that aren't covered here as well - high density living within cities results in less habitat loss and fragmentation than suburban and rural living. That's important. It's also easier to supply infrastructure to a densely populated area than it is to supply infrastructure to areas that tend towards more sprawl. And cities support mass transit more efficiently than suburban and rural areas.