Super Eco

Photo credit: thejonoakley, flickr

Could you be a little more dense, please? We're not being sarcastic. With half of humanity now living in urban areas, increasing urban density will be key to building sustainability.

Humans naturally congregate in cities—naturally, that is, except for in America. What's happening in American cities can hardly be called "natural." The sprawling American metropolis is built on what Scientific American calls "the cheap energy and profligate consumption of a materially exuberant age that is rapidly coming to an end." These cities find themselves staring down the triple threat of climate change, scarcity of energy and resources and broken supply lines.

Cities will be hit hard by the challenges of global warming. Folks, this goes beyond efforts such as Los Angeles' giving out free CFLs (a worthy program, indeed, but not one that will ultimately affect problems posed by the city's sprawling design).  Savvy urban planning will help cities decarbonize and reorganize infrastructure and resources to make them sustainable, convenient and homeworthy for residents and workers.

If people are going to live together in cities—and we should—then we need to pack in the infrastructure, businesses, homes and services to support that. Let's get dense. We need public transit. We need neighborhoods, real neighborhoods, where people can walk or bike to local shops.  We need people to be able to live near where they work, to become emotionally invested in their home towns. We need to return to smaller homes and multi-family housing. We need accessible, convenient recycling. We need vibrant gathering spots and more green spaces to keep things friendly and livable. We need cities to become more self-sufficient, from their energy to their food. 

Nothing dense about that.