Impact of urban planning on the environment
The way our cities and suburbs are designed has a huge impact on the amount of carbon we emit and our capability to reduce it. With 2.5 billion people projected to move to cities by the year 2050, we have the chance to create new settlements from scratch in a way that would help us fight climate change. But how?
The main drivers of climate change distinctive of cities and suburbs are motor vehicle transport and residential buildings, both of which are exacerbated by urban sprawl. Suburban settlements are located far away from urban centres, are strictly divided into residential and commercial parts, and often lack infrastructure for alternative means of transport, such as railroads bus stops, bike paths, or even footpaths. This means commuting to work, grocery shopping or other everyday trips inevitably involve cars. In the USA, which is notorious for sprawling suburbia, around half of all car trips are 3 miles (4.82 km) or less (1). These trips could be completely avoided if the suburbs were properly planned which would greatly reduce emissions. Data shows that low-density settlements use exponentially less energy for transport than denser ones (2).
An often ignored aspect of low-density sprawl's environmental impact are drawbacks of single-family homes, which are the building blocks of these developments. Energy production for heating and electricity in residential buildings is responsible for 10.9% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the world, so improving the way they are designed could bring enormous reductions (3). These homes are completely detached and leak heat on all sides. They are also often unnecessarily large and feature big lawns and long driveways which take up vast amounts of space, which could be used to house people more compactly. A commonly proposed solution to the energy inefficiencies of suburban housing is changing out appliances for more efficient ones and investing in better insulation, but in reality, significant reductions are only possible with compact developments (4).
The solution to these problems is creating medium density, mixed-use, walkable and cyclable developments in place of suburbs. These are fairly compact, low-rise terraced buildings, with commercial, residential, cultural, and entertainment mixed together.
(1)https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips
(3)https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_calthorpe_7_principles_for_building_better_cities
It's great you have used so many sources. The topic looks really interesting.
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