Green Metropolis by David Owen
Last week I had a long car ride and spent the majority of it listening to Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability by David Owen. The expansive title is a pretty good description of what the book is about. Over the course of six chapters the author had me convinced I need to move into an apartment in New York to truly reduce my carbon footprint. But then the very end of the book came and I changed my mind. While he makes a very strong case for why dense urban cities are the most sustainable places to live, he ends the book by recognizing that we can’t all live in them and that if I left for the city, someone else is just going to take my place in my low density neighborhood. That family would be less likely than me to walk and bike to most of their destinations too. So maybe it’s not so bad that I stay put in my somewhat suburban home with my rain gardens, rain barrel, habit of biking or busing to work, and six block walk to get drinks or dinner.
The book dives into how Manhattan functions, from energy consumption to transportation. He turns facts on their head like the misconception that cities like New York consume far more energy than any other and therefore are bad. By considering energy consumption per person New York actually ranks far below other cities. It takes a more energy to heat and cool my single family detached home compared to one unit in a 10 story apartment in Manhattan because my house can’t take advantage of being stacked between two other units which lowers heating and cooling loads. It also takes more infrastructure to run power to my one house as compared to 100 units in one apartment on the same sized lot. Services are run far more efficiently in more densely populated areas.
This density also allows for easier access to goods and services. Someone living in Manhattan is likely living within a few blocks of a grocery store, drug store, several restaurants, and retail shops. I live in one of the older cities annexed into Omaha decades ago and have a few restaurants and some specialty shops six blocks away. It’s a mile to the nearest drug store and grocery store, a distance that is less than appealing to haul back several sacks of groceries (especially since I have to climb a hill steeper than the infamous Heartbreak Hill at the Boston Marathon with my goods). This means I, along with all my neighbors, drive to get basic necessities. It’s this difference that makes a city like New York greener than my own town of Omaha. It may not be populated with more trees and parks, but because far more residents walk, bike, and take transit compared to my city of mostly drivers they cut down the per person carbon footprint.
“The average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than residents of any other American City, and less than 30 percent of the national average.”
We can drive the latest hybrid or fully electric vehicle, compost in our backyards, and replace our windows with the highest rating triple-pane glass, but none of it will get us close to the minimal carbon footprint of someone living in an urban environment. The savings for each of these changes just doesn’t compare to not needing the car in the first place, using less energy in a multi-unit building, or participating in a citywide composting program. Even trying to buy local is not as sustainable as one would think. The economy of scale from shipping mass quantities of food from overseas actually results in a lower carbon footprint than one person driving their car an hour to the countryside to pick their own berries or purchase a 1/2 cow.
At the end of the book Owen takes a harsh stance against sustainable technologies like solar and window power, arguing their energy savings are often lost because of the way in which power generation and supply work. I wonder if his perspective has changed in the 10 years since the book was published knowing solar and wind technology has made great advances which have reduced cost and improved efficiency. I suspect however that despite the new technology that adding solar panels to my home still wouldn’t set me ahead of the apartment in New York from a carbon footprint perspective.
In the end I, like the author, will likely stay in my low density home because it’s what I know and offers me the conveniences I have come to enjoy. An apartment in a dense city won’t allow me to let my dogs out the back door to run around or to walk outside to pick my own tomatoes and cucumbers for canning. But I will still continue to change my habits so I drive less and walk and bike more. I will still compost in my yard, visit the local farmers market by bike, and take the bus when I can. My city might not be able to compete with Manhattan, but I can at least take a few steps to close the gap just a little.
