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The world has embarked upon a campaign to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is a serious challenge that will require focused policies rooted in reality. Regrettably, the political process sometimes falls far short of that objective. This is particularly so in the states of California and Washington, where ideology has crowded out rational analysis and the adoption of what can only be seen as reckless “cowboy” policies.
Last year, California enacted Senate Bill 375, which seeks to reduce future GHG emissions by encouraging higher urban population densities and forcing more development to be near transit stations. Yet there is no objective analysis to suggest that such an approach will work. Of course, there are the usual slogans about people giving up their cars for transit and walking to work, but this occurs only in the minds of the ideologues. The forecasting models have been unable to predict any substantial reduction in automobile use, and, more importantly, such policies have never produced such a result.
In fact, higher densities are likely to worsen the quality of life in California, while doing little, if anything to reduce GHG emissions. California already has the densest urban areas (which includes core cities and surrounding suburbs) in the United States. The Los Angeles urban area is 30 percent more dense than the New York urban area. The San Francisco and San Jose urban areas are also denser than the New York urban area. Sacramento stands as the 10th most dense among the 38 urban areas over 1,000,000 population, while Riverside-San Bernardino ranks 12th and San Diego ranks 13th.
This high density creates the worst traffic congestion in the nation. The slower stop and go operation of cars in traffic congestion materially intensifies local air pollution and increases health hazards. It also consumes more gasoline, which increases GHG emissions. Finally, California’s prescriptive land use regulations have destroyed housing affordability. By the early 1990s, land use regulation had driven prices up well beyond national levels relative to incomes, according to Dartmouth’s William Fischell. Over the next decade the rationing effect of California’s excessive land use restrictions tripled house prices relative to incomes, setting up the mortgage meltdown and all that has followed in its wake.
The implementation of Senate Bill 375’s provisions seems likely to make things worse. California’s urban areas already have plenty of dense “luxury” housing, much of which is now empty or is now converted from condos to rentals. Wherever they are clustered, particularly outside traditional urban centers like San Francisco, such areas experience intense traffic congestion, with all the resultant negative impact on both people and the environment.
Yet despite the problems seen in California, the ideological plague has spread to Washington state. Last year the Washington legislature enacted a measure (House Bill 2815) that requires reductions in driving per capita, for the purpose of GHG emission reduction. By 2050, driving per capita is supposed to be halved. This year there was a legislative proposal, House Bill 1490, that would have mandated planning for 50 housing units to the acre within one-half mile of light rail stations. This would have amounted to a density of nearly 50,000 per square mile, 3 times the city of San Francisco, 7 times the density of the city of Seattle and more than that of any of more than 700 census tracts (small districts) in the three-county Seattle area. Areas around stations would be two-thirds as dense as Hong Kong, the world’s most dense urban area.
The density requirement has since been amended out of the bill, but the fact that it made it so far in the legislature indicates how far the density mania has gone. The bill appears unlikely to pass this year.
Extending the density planning regime is not likely to help the people on the ground, much less reduce GHGs. Seattle already has a housing affordability problem, which is not surprising given its prescriptive planning policies (called growth management or smart growth). Theo Eicher of the University of Washington has documented the close connection between Seattle’s regulatory structures and its house price increases.
As in California, Seattle house prices rose dramatically during the housing bubble, nearly doubling relative to incomes. At the same time, much of the debate on House Bill 1490 has been over affordable housing. Yet there has been virtually no recognition of connection between Seattle’s low level of housing affordability and its destructive land use regulations. House Bill 1490 would have only made things worse, and still could. Proponents have indicated that they have not given up.
The theory behind House Bill 1490 parallels that of California’s SB 375. It assumes high densities would significantly reduce driving and attract people to transit. As in California, however, this is based upon wishful thinking, and has no basis in reality. No urban area in the developed world has produced a material decline in automobile use through such policies.
Regrettably, the special interest groups behind the California and Washington initiatives appear more interested in forcing people to change their lifestyles than in reducing GHG emissions. This is demonstrated by the Washington driving reduction requirement.
A good faith attempt to reduce GHG emissions from cars would have targeted GHG emissions from cars, not the use of cars. The issue is GHG emission reduction, not behavior modification, and the more the special interests target people’s behavior, the clearer it becomes how facetious they are about reducing GHG emissions.
Technology offers the most promise. Already the technology is available to substantially reduce GHG emissions by cars, without requiring people to change their lifestyles. Hybrids currently being sold obtain nearly three times the miles per gallon of the average personal vehicle (cars, personal trucks and sport utility vehicles) fleet. And that is before the promising developments in decades to come in alternative fuels and improved vehicle technology. In addition, the rapid increase in people working at home – a number on track to pass that of transit users by 2015 – would also represent a clear way to reduce GHG emissions.
Finally it is not certain that suburban housing produces higher GHG emissions per capita than high rise urban development. The only comprehensive research on the subject was conducted in Australia and found that, generally, when all GHG emissions are considered, suburban areas emitted less per capita than higher density areas. This is partially because dense urbanites tend to live a high consumption lifestyle, by eating out at restaurants serving exotic foods, having summer homes and extensive travel. It is also because high density living requires energy consumption that does not occur in lower density suburbs, such as electricity for elevators, common area lighting, and highly consumptive central air conditioning, heating, water heating and ventilation, as Energy Australia research indicates.
Further, tomorrow’s housing will be more carbon friendly than today’s. Japan has already developed a prototype 2,150 square foot, single story suburban carbon neutral house.
Much of the anti-suburban and anti-car sloganeering ignores these developments and generally assumes a static world. If the world were static, we would still be living in caves.
The California and Washington initiatives were not based upon any comprehensive research. There were no reports estimating the tons of GHG emissions that were to be reduced. There was no cost analysis of how much each ton removed would cost. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that the maximum amount necessary to accomplish deep reversal of GHG concentrations is between $20 and $50 per ton. Responsible policy making would have evaluated these issues. (It seems highly improbable that Seattle’s currently under-construction University light rail extension remotely matches this standard, with is capital and operating costs per annual patron of more than $10,000.)
The price that society can afford to pay for GHG emission reduction is considerably less today than it was just six months ago. The history of the now departed communist world demonstrates that poorer societies simply do not place a high priority on environmental protection. That is not surprising, since people address their basic human needs before broader objectives, such as a better environment. That may not comport with the doctrines of political correctness, but it is reality.
In such times, communities should be careful not to undertake policies based on assumptions or the preferences of those planners, architects and ideologues who seem to hold suburbs and personal mobility in such contempt that they would not be satisfied even if they emitted no GHGs. These radical motives are inappropriate. “Cowboy” policies enacted ad hoc at the bequest of ideologues openly disdainful of our basic lifestyles threaten not only the future prosperity of a society but our most reasonable path to long-term environmental improvement including reducing GHG emissions.
Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris. He was born in Los Angeles and was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission by Mayor Tom Bradley. He is the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.”
I disagree
As part of fixing its budget crisis, California just increased the sales tax. If they can raise the sales tax, they can raise the gas tax.
More importantly, I believe in bringing the public along with your goals. If limiting greenhouse gas emissions is important, then we really should pursue the policies that will work and educate the masses about the issue to bring them along with what is really involved. If people knew that regulating greenhouse gas emissions meant deliberately trying to create more congestion and increase the cost of building more housing would they really choose that over a gas tax?
The failure electricity deregulation in California convinced me that the political success of regulations is often contingent on them actually achieving their goals.
If SB 375 blows up, efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions in the US are dead. Right now, I see very little reason to think that SB 375 isn't going to blow up. Density is being increased almost randomly. There was no proof of concept to see if this would work. In the places that have incidently tried retroactively increasing the density of suburban areas have had bad results. Is creating another San Fernando Valley the way to convince the locals to fight global warming?
http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88
The Los Angeles urban area
The Los Angeles urban area is 30 percent more dense than New York urban area. The San Francisco and San Jose urban areas are also denser than the New York urban area.
This is a misleading statistic. Urban area is not always effective in analyzing actual densities due to its broad definition. Parts of New York are 3-4 times more dense than Los Angeles (density and census tracts):
http://www.lewis.spa.ucla.edu/GIScontest/OsgoogEtAl_LANYDensity_report.p...
Finally it is not certain that suburban housing produces higher GHG emissions per capita than high rise urban development. The only comprehensive research on the subject was conducted in Australia and found that, generally, when all GHG emissions are considered, suburban areas emitted less per capita than higher density areas. This is partially because dense urbanites tend to live a high consumption lifestyle, by eating out at restaurants serving exotic foods, having summer homes and extensive travel.
It's not certain, but you're avoiding a fairly comprehensive study conducted by an economist that you routinely source:
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_1_green-cities.html
I would doubt that most "urbanites" own two homes or are living any more of a consumptive lifestyle than a typical American in the suburbs. The smaller the dwelling, the more drastic the cut in greenhouse gases.
According to Glaeser's study: "In almost every metropolitan area, carbon emissions are significantly lower for people who live in central cities than for people who live in suburbs." Atlanta, Houston, Memphis, and Dallas scored the worst in regards to GHG emissions.
Technology offers the most promise. Already the technology is available to substantially reduce GHG emissions by cars, without requiring people to change their lifestyles. Hybrids currently being sold obtain nearly three times the miles per gallon of the average personal vehicle (cars, personal trucks and sport utility vehicles) fleet.
1) There's going to be no benefit regarding future technology for automobiles and carbon emissions if one destroys natural carbon sinks such as forests, grasslands, etc. so they can drive their Prius around a new low-density, auto-dependent subdivision.
There's also going to be little benefit in carbon reductions knowing that more people are driving cars than ever before, and the annual miles driven per person are increased through auto-dependent designs that you're championing.
2) Much like it is unreasonable to think that just if everyone would live in a skyscraper and take transit; it is unrealistic to think that people will switch over to smaller hybrid cars (not to mention the only mpg standards for cars being set over the years have been by government regulations).
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Cowboys? Who exactly?
Wendell,
I continue to find your message biased and poorly substantiated. Claiming academic teaching status in your bio suggests that you offer well-founded views, but your selective use of 'evidence' is incredible. You discredit yourself with such a slack approach to serious debate.
Three immediate points:
1. You should make clear in this post that the 'comprehensive research' from Australia is authored by yourself, and that it is a piece of secondary research which 'examines' a primary source produced by the Australia Conservation Foundation. In the introduction to your report you acknowledge that you were commissioned by a residential property development organisation which is opposed to the kind of regulation currently utilised to direct delivery of higher density areas, and indicate that your commission originated in the fact that the ACF report reaches potentially anomalous conclusions.
2. Your 'examination' of the ACF report appears to neatly avoid their conclusion and reinterprets the issue to suit your agenda. They clearly point to the advantages that CAN be gained through increased density, and instead highlight that the issue of GHG and other environmental impacts are as related to affluence. Their research correlates higher incomes to more central areas - unfortunately those with higher incomes consume more this associates higher GHG emissions with central areas. There is no causal link between urban location and GHG in their report. In contrast they infer that outer areas offer energy disadvantages and are associated with lower income levels. Did you miss these points somehow?
For interested readers: the original source ACF report and their background methodology can be downloaded through the links [right hand side of page] on:
http://www.acfonline.org.au/consumptionatlas/
3. The suggestion that this is the only comprehensive study of urban GHG emissions is quite staggering! Were we born yesterday?! I suggest the following as a primer for any readers who might have been taken in by the nonsense above, with the references it lists as a starting point for further reading in the field of urban energy consumption and the related issue of GHG emissions. Enjoy.
http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/emerging/urban-form/...
Facts please Wendell, rather than your own secondary interpretation and spin derived from highly subjective, prejudiced views.
I find your approach of ignoring good quality, substantiated research by others and seeking to drown out these other voices with prolific but flawed self-promotion and propoganda both misleading and rather tragic.
Similar observations apply to your other posts regarding your interpretation and re-presentation of housing markets, especially recent market corrections and their causes. You appear to misunderstand why people are attracted to cities and what actually drives economies. Either that or you have a massive axe to grind. Which one is it?
Tim Robinson
Auckland, NZ