For those going to tonight’s meeting on the transit-oriented communities bill: An exhaustive new report (via Sightline) shows that carbon emissions for people who live in dense cities are far lower than those who live in suburbs. And the denser a city is, the less carbon each of its inhabitants emits. Why? Because people who live in cities drive less (producing lower transportation emissions) and use less energy overall (because sharing walls reduces energy consumption). Just something to keep in your pocket when the pitchfork crew starts shouting that density is bad for the environment.

31 replies on “Some Pro-Density Ammo”

  2. I believe people would accept density if gov’ts and developers had a history of timely providing adequate and meaningful open space in denser urban enivronments. They don’t have credibility on this point, so residents won’t take that bargain. People aren’t stupid

  4. ECB – so why again are you supporting a transit system that is really a faux commuter train that will allow people to live further out in great urban places like Fife or Redondo Beach?

  6. Wow, there are so many car-dependent, lawn-loving, mortgage-indebted, suburbanites commenting on this blog! I had no idea Seattle was the Pasadena of the Northwest.

  7. @1 – just turn off your heat and save money then.

    @4 – go move to Macedonia and tell me how you like living there.

    @5 – they’re all refugees from the PI blogs for the most part.

  12. the article specifically says living in the center city is where the benefits are. living in suburbs near urban centers is not nearly as beneficial. inner city transit yes. commuter rail no.

  13. Depends on how far you take the commuter rail, actually.

    If you live near the first stop on the line, it’s a lot better than the last stop on the line.

  14. People already live in the suburbs, the question is do we want denser growth around public transit or do we want total sprawl.

    We could have no growth, but that would require a) complete collapse of the economy (we’re almost there!) or b) people to stop breeding.

  15. we could put all population growth in the central city by building big apartment buildings. supporting a transit system that is designed to take people 10, 20, or 30 miles from the center city is not supporting the kind of density that the paper describes. living in Fife encourage bigger apartments and more passenger miles of travel.

    read the paper and then try to justify the faux commuter rail that masquerades as transit. for energy efficiency small apartments that are in the center city are required.

  16. @15,

    That might be what’s required, but that’s not how people actually live. Real metropolitan areas have regional transit.

    People who live in Jersey City can take the PATH rather than drive all the way into the city.

    People who live in Burlingame can take CalTrain into the city rather than have to drive.

    Most of those people, especially those in the NYC area, live much more densely than most people even within Seattle proper.

    We also desperately need reliable transit in this town, but not at the expense of regional transit.

  17. Keshmeshi is right. It’s also worth pointing out that you can’t undo sprawl; Fife is already there, and it’s not going away. And most people in the area live in Fife, or other Fifes just like it. It doesn’t matter how many apartment buildings you build in the center; the people in Fife aren’t moving there.

  18. Hey ECB there’s a word for how you environmental folks are treating the people in SE – it’s called H A R R A S S M E N T, or if you wish, environmental racism.

    Why don’t you start with your own neighborhood and make that work, rather than taking over everbody elses?

    Methins perhaps we should be taking over your column, clearly you can’t even write well.

  19. @18: I’m curious, can you define environmental racism? How does that manifest itself? Perhaps in writing blog posts trumpeting a measure that is intended to benefit the city, rail transit, poor people, and the environment? A measure that’s opposed by speculators and their shills, who have the audacity to trot out displacement as a justification to oppose the measure, when its failure is likely to INCREASE displacement and anyway they are the ones who stand to benefit from gentrification the most?

  20. K& Fn – if you read the paper you will find that the big environmental savings are from living in the dense parts of region or in other words the center city. NYC has had major transit for well over a century. I’m not sure what NJ cities Path supports but I’d bet that they don’t measure up to NYC for efficiency. The point of the paper was that living in really dense areas with small space apartments and less need for passenger miles of transport is much better for the environment.

    They even make the point that they are calculating based on new construction because THEY WANT TO DIRECT WHERE new construction should occur and that is in the inner dense city.

    Yes, Fife is there but should we encourage more building there? Their answer is no. Most people do not live in towns like Fife. But more importantly do we want a 3000 to 8000 density covering all of King County or we want Seattle at 15,000 like SF?

  22. Kesh – the thing about the NYC area is that those NJ cities really are part of NYC geographically if not culturally. Newark is only about 10 miles from Manhattan. I’m not criticizing the type of train but rather the type of area it serves. Comparing Fife to Newark or Hoboken is not reasonable.

  24. @18: Doug “fool”ey

    1. ECB lives in SE Seattle – so much for your claim of “evironmental racism”. Anyone who actually proposes changes in the car-based utopia that is falling apart and totally dependent on foreign oil will be labeled by those who can’t see past the big fat grill on their cars.

    2. Before you decide to take over ECB’s column, maybe you should research some facts before shooting yourself in the foot and be able to spell “methinks” and use it properly in a sentence

    3. Thanks for the arrogant display of complete ignorance. It is refreshing to see comments from someone who is clearly drug-addled or just plain crazy.

  26. A fair bit of New Jersey on the other side of the Hudson from Manhattan and along the North East Corridor is nearly as dense as Manhattan and much denser than many parts of New York City as a whole. Queens and Staten Island have large tracts of single family housing. For that matter parts of those two boroughs are further from mid-town than Newark.

    I don’t get all the hating on Fife here. Fife is closer to much of the Port of Tacoma than downtown Tacoma is. Fife is also only 5 miles or so from downtown Tacoma. Someone living in Fife quite likely has a job in Tacoma or South King County rather than Seattle.

    Even if someone is commuting into Seattle from Fife or Tacoma I’d rather see development go into those places than into some former forest or farmer’s field in Orting or Duvall.

  27. Chris the argument isn’t Fife or Duvall it is Fife or central Seattle or Tacoma. The paper that the post refers to, makes it clear that really urban places use much less energy. Fife is just the poster town example of what light rail will be serving. If we want a really urban energy efficient environment we need to provide transit inside the city, making it really easy to live without a car. If we spend our transit dollars making it easier to get further out where living spaces are bigger and one can’t live without a car that’s not good planning for energy savings.

    Yes, the area around NYC in NJ is very dense and has good rail access, as it should be. But Fife and Redondo Beach are not dense and won’t be for a very long time. Their density will come at the expense of more energy efficient density in Seattle. Which is the point of the paper.

  28. “Thanks for the arrogant display of complete ignorance. It is refreshing to see comments from someone who is clearly drug-addled or just plain crazy.”

    The answer is door B, otherwise known as “Tooleytown.”

    His physical address is in Tacoma.

  29. McG @27

    There are a couple of problems.

    First if you want to serve the dense areas between Seattle and Tacoma, Seattle and Everett or Seattle and Redmond you have to serve the less dense areas along the line as well.

    Second development happens only to the extent there is demand. While it is true that development in Fife might lessen the demand for development in Tacoma somewhat I don’t think it is significant enough to say “build nothing in Fife” or to say “keep building the low-density crap you’ve been building”. Development in Fife is much more likely to lessen the demand for greenfield development in Orting or Buckley.

    Third Fife is quite close to the massive transit hub at Tacoma Dome Station and it isn’t much further to downtown. It is already much closer to Sounder, ST Express buses, and Tacoma link than large tracts of Tacoma will ever be.

    Fife will see more development no matter what. The question is will it be more of relatively low-density pattern already in place or will it be higher-density development?

  30. so stefan you believe that it is better to serve Fife with the best transit and i believe it would be better to serve from the center out and make the urban densities that the paper shows give by far the most energy savings.

    all of the most energy efficient places have very good transit and high density. reread the paper and look at the energy efficiencies and then explain why Fife would be in your high cost transit starter plan.

    and yes Fife will see development but the density is up to zoning primarily and not the form of transit. also, restating, no matter what, Fife will not be part of kind of urban density that is needed for the kind of energy efficiencies for a very, very long time.

    thanks for the civil discourse.

  31. The hypocrisy inherent in this argument is that the stronger correlation, true the world over, is between standard of living and energy use. If we all took vows of poverty, we could live in smaller places, under poorer conditions and make a dent on the earth’s carbon dioxide emissions. But, these are political decisions we make for others, and never for ourselves.

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