From Patrick, member of SustainabilityForum.com:
Due to the large number of responses to my first article I have decided to write a follow-up.
First, many people seem to have missed the link to my blog, Sustainable City, which is intended to be an outline for a city which would provide the solution to many of the problems that have been discussed. Here is the link: http://sustainablecity.blogspot.com. This information is not intended to be political or contain any sort of political bias. It is purely the result of a scientific assessment of modern cities and how they might be made more efficient. Please keep that in mind as you read.
If you plot economic growth, consumption of consumer goods, and consumption of natural capital (resources), you would find a positive correlation between all three; they would tend to rise together and fall together. This is where thermodynamics comes into play. If we have limited natural capital, it follows that growth based upon that capital must also be limited. No amount of efficiency through better technology can overcome this. You can get more and more work done with the same amount of energy through the application of better technology, but you will never be able to get an infinite amount of work done with any amount of energy. Thus, those that believe in an economy based upon indefinite growth essentially believe that a perpetual motion machine is possible.
The charges of communism miss the point entirely. No one is forcing anybody to do anything. When the cost of gasoline rises to a certain point, you just won’t be able to afford your house or your car anymore, and still buy the groceries. At that point the apartment and mass transit start to look like pretty good ideas, and continued urban sprawl starts to look like a horrible idea (if it doesn’t already). Remember that as the cost of fuel rises, so too does the cost of virtually everything else we buy.
The house and the car (sprawl) is a paradigm that has existed for a mere 50-70 years tops. It was brought about by the availability of cheap energy in the form of oil. Before the invention of the automobile and the widespread availability of cheap oil, cities followed a very different pattern similar to what I have described in my blog. Since the primary means of transportation was walking, the public places and places of commerce were built within walking distance of people’s houses. The population was of a sufficient density to support all the services required by the community, therefore dwellings tended to be of a size that allowed for this density. There were still houses out in the country of course, but these were several miles (and a very time-consuming commute by horse) to even basic goods and services. Over the past 50 years, cities have been able to continue to expand horizontally as the range of travel for the individual was greatly increased by the automobile and cheap oil, making that long commute take much less time and therefore making it more tolerable.
As the cost of oil continues to rise, the exact opposite of what has occurred over the past 50 years will happen: Suburbs and distant communities will become abandoned as people relocate to city centers, and city centers will become denser and taller to accommodate more people. The land now occupied by suburbs will become farms again, providing the city’s food supply. The reason for this is that as the oil supplies are depleted the supply lines will necessarily become shorter, in addition to people being unable to pay the bills. The only way to achieve greater efficiency in this area is by greater centralization of the city itself, which requires that the city become denser and taller (vertical). It is unarguable that someone living in an apartment and using mass transit consumes less energy than someone living in a house and driving a car. Again, no one is suggesting forcing anyone to give these things up. However, some people may be forced to alter their lifestyle as the cost of oil continues to rise (and it will continue to rise).
To say that the cost of maintaining goods and services in a place like Manhattan is higher than in the suburbs is incorrect. Imagine the cost of providing and maintaining goods and services to the population of Manhattan if they were spread out at the average suburban density. The cost of doing this would be astronomical. As more and more people become unable to afford the suburban lifestyle, they will be attracted to the possibility of living in a community where all of their needs can be easily accessed by a 5-10 minute walk, and where reliable mass transit is available to take them to work or other locations. In addition, such a community could have spacious parks and recreation areas since less space would be required for houses and automobiles. Many people are already attracted to such a community without the incentive of high fuel prices due to the conveniences that can be provided. Houses in a New Urbanist community with the features I have described typically have a higher value per square foot than houses located in the same area in a typical suburban community. This shows that people are willing to pay extra for the option of being able to walk to some basic services, and to have the option of taking transit.
All of the schemes for running our cars on alternative oils produce an EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) far less than oil. In other words, you would pay much more to travel the same amount of miles you do now. One recent article in Popular Mechanics concluded that filling your car up with hydrogen would be the equivalent of $10/gallon gasoline, and that is with an investment of over $20 trillion dollars in solar panels and other infrastructure. Ethanol in some cases produces less energy than what it takes to make it, and will not scale due to the amount of land that is required.
As continued horizontal expansion (sprawl) is the product of cheap gas, it follows that the opposite (vertical expansion) would be the product of expensive gas. Even if we switch our cars to alternate fuels (which I am in favor of), the cities will expand vertically to accommodate those who can no longer afford the suburbs, and there will be some abandonment of the suburbs by those who will no longer be able to afford the higher fuel prices (which would also translate into higher prices for everything else). Indeed, many Americans already find themselves in the situation of only being able to afford the house and the car by acquiring ever greater amounts of personal debt, which is itself an unsustainable situation. Throw in high gas prices and the likelihood of a carbon tax, and it becomes obvious that the paradigm of the house and car is no longer sustainable. A completely new paradigm is required.
http://sustainablecity.blogspot.com
