California has been a leader in state action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and now the Golden State is going after one of the most important and least recognized causes of global warming: suburban development patterns.
Attorney General Jerry Brown recently sued San Bernardino County, one of the nation’s fastest sprawling counties, for failing to account for greenhouse gas emissions in its 25-year blueprint for growth, according to USA Today.
This lawsuit, along with proposed California Senate Bill 375 requiring regional planners and local governments to be mindful of the long-term impacts of development policies, could have nationwide significance, according to David Goldberg, communications director for Smart Growth America. “In an energy-constrained future with a warming planet, people will need more efficient living patterns,” says Goldberg. “Officials overseeing planning and development need to be held accountable.”
California’s actions are being closely watched by other states such as New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, USA Today reports.
Now all of this does not mean that sprawl is coming to an end in California or any other state. However, it represents a long overdue recognition of the impacts of automobile-dependent development patterns on the environment and energy use.
WHAT IS SPRAWL
In order to understand that connection, sprawl needs to be clearly defined. One of the most vigorous defenders of sprawl, Robert Bruegmann, a University of Illinois professor who has written a book titled Sprawl: A Compact History, defines it so broadly — essentially, any outward growth in a metropolis — that the term loses all meaning.
It’s true that there has always been growth on the outskirts of settlements — and sometimes that growth has been relatively spread out at first. The peripheral growth may be suburban, but not necessarily sprawl. Historically, the outward growth was walkable and included a mixture of uses.
Sprawl is a particular form of outward development that began in the 20th Century and was designed to accommodate automobiles to the exclusion of other transportation modes. It is characterized by separated uses, disconnected street patterns, plenty of surface parking, and arterial roads with high design speeds. It also tends to be extremely low in density. The suburbs of Phoenix and Atlanta have 1,600 to 1,700 people per square mile, according to the book Boomburbs by Robert Lang and Jennifer LeFurgy. They are wastefully spread out in comparison to traditional cities like Boston (11,543 square mile), San Francisco (15,834 per square mile), Paris (24,783 per square mile), and Manhattan (66,940 per square mile).
US urbanized areas now consist overwhelmingly of sprawl, which contributes to a low average density of 2,670 per square mile — less than two units per acre. This US suburban development pattern is the main reason why we use twice as much energy per capita as European countries that enjoy the same standard of living as ours. Energy use is the driver of greenhouse gases, which is why the US is the cause of a disproportionate share of global warming.
Development patterns also make the US exceedingly vulnerable to long-term energy scarcity resulting from the peaking of oil production — predicted by many experts to take place in the next decade. We are seeing the warning signs of this impending peak in the rising fuel prices and energy insecurity of the 21st Century.
When people live in sprawl, they lose the choice of other modes of transportation. Walking is out — and for the most part, so is public transportation. So if there is a crisis with regard to energy or the environment, people cannot easily reduce their automobile use. Those living in urban places — either new or old — can more easily make that switch on a temporary or permanent basis.
New Urbanism is not justified solely by global warming or energy scarcity. There are many good reasons to build human-scale communities, which simply work better on many levels. But the planet-wide challenges of global warming and peak oil will depend on New Urbanism and smart growth as important parts of the solution.
This article is available in the July/August 2007 issue of New Urban News, along with many more articles not available online. Subscribe or order the individual issue. |