Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
All of the commuters drive? Is this travel time for all commuters or just drivers?
I'm a little late to this party but both sets of stats I posted are commute times. In neither case, Louisville nor Denver, does it say how the workers get to work. However, more people in Louisville work in their same county than pepole in Denver. But again, Boulder County (Louisville) is larger than Denver County. Always something.
ETA: There are far more "freeway" miles in Denver than in Louisville. Louisville has a few miles of US 36 where it is multi-lane, limited access. Denver has I-25, I-70, I-225, I-270.
Last edited by Katarina Witt; 12-29-2011 at 08:35 AM..
Solar panels are no less practical in urban cores--and often, you get more direct economic benefit from putting a layer of insulation under your roof than solar on top of it. Or the solar installation doesn't need to be on the house itself--my electric utility gives the option of a small surcharge (about $6 a month) to purchase power from solar or other renewable energy sources (hopefully it's an idea that will spread as renewables see more widespread use.) Multi-family urban homes are generally more energy-efficient than single-family homes, both through shared walls and smaller square footage (less space to heat=less energy needed to keep things warm.) And if you live in a neighborhood close to where you work you can walk or bike, saving not just fuel but also the energy/resource cost of an automobile (it takes energy equal to many years' worth of fuel consumption to produce a new car.) In fact, proximity to work is more important than how "green" your car (or your house) is for purposes of carbon footprint:
Many suburban homes are built on former farmland--but things like leveling and paving (plus generations of assorted pollutants) typically ruin most of that good topsoil. So no, just because it's former farmland doesn't mean it will grow great crops any more than a dead racehorse will run fast. It may have done so before it was ruined, afterward not so much. And in the case of a lot of Southwestern cities, no, the soil is cruddy and there probably isn't enough water for agriculture. That being said, gardening is fun and productive, which is why urban gardening is coming into big-time vogue in a lot of cities, on vacant lots or small backyard plots. So, at most, suburban gardening comes out to roughly equal value.
And while the logistics of food distribution are definitely out of whack, the efficiencies of large-scale farming are greater than hyperlocal food production in all but the most fertile areas, even if energy/transportation costs go up significantly. In fact, it makes more economic sense for people to live in places like the Southwest, where soil is poor, and leave arable farmland for food production, then ship the food to the people by rail. In many cultures where arable land is limited (such as Japan or Italy) flat, arable land is rare, so people build up the side of hills too steep for farming or other places where plants won't grow.
So, in a lot of ways, urban life is more sustainable--and typically it takes less work than a sustainable approach in the outer suburbs.
Obviously one size does not fit all, but the fact of the matter is that Urban households can only cut back on resource use. There isn't room for each urban residence to put up a solar array, plant a vegtable garden or raise chickens. There is still a place for creativity and culture, but that won't feed us in the near future.
Also, it's obvious that only a small fraction of todays surburban residences do any of that, but virtually all suburban homes could be easily retrofitted, and vast surburban areas with a solar panel on each roof could produce far more power than smaller, more compact urban areas doing the same.
Unlike dead horses, soil can be brought back to life and/or improved upon, and gardens take no more water than lawns do, so water useage wouldn't be affected except maybe in the desert Southwest.
Add electric cars with ranges of 100 miles or so (which we already have) and suburbia's #1 problem (the need for vehicles to do anything) is solved.
All and all, it turns out there IS a future for suburbia. Areas which remain in range of electric cars will be OK, even when gasoline is inevitably too expensive to be used as fuel anymore. We don't all have to live in Tokyo-style sleeping tubes within megacities after all.
Obviously one size does not fit all, but the fact of the matter is that Urban households can only cut back on resource use. There isn't room for each urban residence to put up a solar array, plant a vegtable garden or raise chickens. There is still a place for creativity and culture, but that won't feed us in the near future.
Also, it's obvious that only a small fraction of todays surburban residences do any of that, but virtually all suburban homes could be easily retrofitted, and vast surburban areas with a solar panel on each roof could produce far more power than smaller, more compact urban areas doing the same.
Unlike dead horses, soil can be brought back to life and/or improved upon, and gardens take no more water than lawns do, so water useage wouldn't be affected except maybe in the desert Southwest.
Add electric cars with ranges of 100 miles or so (which we already have) and suburbia's #1 problem (the need for vehicles to do anything) is solved.
All and all, it turns out there IS a future for suburbia. Areas which remain in range of electric cars will be OK, even when gasoline is inevitably too expensive to be used as fuel anymore. We don't all have to live in Tokyo-style sleeping tubes within megacities after all.
What happens when I need to go beyond 100 miles? The energy still needs to come from somewhere, where? The electric car argument bugs me because at the end of the day you're still using the same amount of energy you were when you were burning gasoline, and you don't have an alternate fuel source. In my opinion, it will be far more economical to become energy efficient. For example, if a car gets 45mpg, or we drive 50% less because we can substitute more efficient transportation for the automobile for certain trips, then overall our fuel usage declines. You won't be able to meet your energy demands if you simply switch sources without having a viable replacement for fossil fuels, of which there currently are none that can be utilized to bring us back up to our current energy demands, such that increased efficiency would be necessary anyways.
What happens when I need to go beyond 100 miles? The energy still needs to come from somewhere, where? The electric car argument bugs me because at the end of the day you're still using the same amount of energy you were when you were burning gasoline, and you don't have an alternate fuel source. In my opinion, it will be far more economical to become energy efficient. For example, if a car gets 45mpg, or we drive 50% less because we can substitute more efficient transportation for the automobile for certain trips, then overall our fuel usage declines. You won't be able to meet your energy demands if you simply switch sources without having a viable replacement for fossil fuels, of which there currently are none that can be utilized to bring us back up to our current energy demands, such that increased efficiency would be necessary anyways.
Engineers and physicists are working on the problem right now. In the future you'll probably get two or three times that range and be able to recharge quicker than it takes to fill a gas tank.
It sounds like wishful thinking at first, but we are well on our way to achieving that goal.
Obviously one size does not fit all, but the fact of the matter is that Urban households can only cut back on resource use. There isn't room for each urban residence to put up a solar array, plant a vegtable garden or raise chickens. There is still a place for creativity and culture, but that won't feed us in the near future.
Also, it's obvious that only a small fraction of todays surburban residences do any of that, but virtually all suburban homes could be easily retrofitted, and vast surburban areas with a solar panel on each roof could produce far more power than smaller, more compact urban areas doing the same.
Unlike dead horses, soil can be brought back to life and/or improved upon, and gardens take no more water than lawns do, so water useage wouldn't be affected except maybe in the desert Southwest.
Add electric cars with ranges of 100 miles or so (which we already have) and suburbia's #1 problem (the need for vehicles to do anything) is solved.
All and all, it turns out there IS a future for suburbia. Areas which remain in range of electric cars will be OK, even when gasoline is inevitably too expensive to be used as fuel anymore. We don't all have to live in Tokyo-style sleeping tubes within megacities after all.
Cutting back on resource use is actually far more important than you're making it out to be. The "green triangle" is "reduce-reuse-recycle," and "reduce" means "use less in the first place." If you live in a compact urban home that uses 50% less energy than a suburban home, you are actually making more of a difference than a suburban home that gets 50% of its power from solar--because that solar array takes energy to create. Similarly, the advantage of location and shorter commute distance, which actually makes more difference to one's energy footprint than home energy use, makes a bigger difference than a long suburban commute with a new hybrid car. Hybrid cars don't grow on trees--they require energy to create and that electricity must be generated somehow. Meanwhile, walking and biking requires no additional energy, aside from maybe the energy needed to create a bicycle or a few pairs of shoes, trivial compared to that needed for a car!
And no, we're not talking about Tokyo-style sleeping tubes. More likely we're talking about mid-rise apartment buildings--neighborhoods that can have solar arrays, rooftop or neighborhood gardens, chicken coops, and most of the other fun stuff you're talking about, in an urban environment that still has human scale.
There is a future for suburbia, but it's likely to be a lot more expensive and exclusive, to meet the inevitably greater energy costs of suburbia and the greater costs for the technological workarounds needed to maintain their existence in an energy-scarce future. Or a lot less pleasant--like the zombie suburbs we have on the West Coast, unsold surplus brand-new subdivisions on the edge of the urban fringe, surrounded by barren graded areas for unbuilt expansions of the subdivision that nobody will need for a long, long time.
Similarly, the advantage of location and shorter commute distance, which actually makes more difference to one's energy footprint than home energy use, makes a bigger difference than a long suburban commute with a new hybrid car.
This is probably true of California, but not so much in many of the more extreme climates of the eastern and midwestern climates. The larger heating and for the south, cooling costs make residential energy usage as high or higher than transportation.
Looking at the EPA website, 30% of energy in Massachusetts is consumed by homes and 31% for transportation. For New York, 31% for homes and 26% for transportation. California is 18% for residential and 39% for transportation.
All 3 states rank at the bottom of per capita energy usage. MA is 48, CA is 49 and is 50.
It probably makes the most difference in California, at least in Southern California (here in Northern California we actually have "winter" and "summer") but the statistics for the article I quoted are national in scope:
Admittedly, it should be noted that in the Northeast and urban Midwest, a lot of the population already lives in this kind of dense urban environment, while in the far west, most of our "big cities" consist of low-density suburban neighborhoods and outlying suburbs. So the dense, walkable communities of the Northeast are already part of the solution! And considering California's excellent potential for low energy use (due to our nice climate) and our potential for solar and other renewable sources, if we had more walkable/transit-oriented urban neighborhoods and less McSprawlville, we might knock New York off the block for that "lowest per capita energy use" spot!
It probably makes the most difference in California, at least in Southern California (here in Northern California we actually have "winter" and "summer") but the statistics for the article I quoted are national in scope:
Admittedly, it should be noted that in the Northeast and urban Midwest, a lot of the population already lives in this kind of dense urban environment, while in the far west, most of our "big cities" consist of low-density suburban neighborhoods and outlying suburbs. So the dense, walkable communities of the Northeast are already part of the solution! And considering California's excellent potential for low energy use (due to our nice climate) and our potential for solar and other renewable sources, if we had more walkable/transit-oriented urban neighborhoods and less McSprawlville, we might knock New York off the block for that "lowest per capita energy use" spot!
Sacramento's "winters" would be a spring month here.
Yea those two states were bad examples. California is rather urban, too, even it's more auto-centric, so that might help its ranking, though a lot of it must be from the climate. California doesn't have much in the way of low-density suburbs to the scale of the east coast.
Cutting back on resource use is actually far more important than you're making it out to be. The "green triangle" is "reduce-reuse-recycle," and "reduce" means "use less in the first place." If you live in a compact urban home that uses 50% less energy than a suburban home, you are actually making more of a difference than a suburban home that gets 50% of its power from solar--because that solar array takes energy to create. Similarly, the advantage of location and shorter commute distance, which actually makes more difference to one's energy footprint than home energy use, makes a bigger difference than a long suburban commute with a new hybrid car. Hybrid cars don't grow on trees--they require energy to create and that electricity must be generated somehow. Meanwhile, walking and biking requires no additional energy, aside from maybe the energy needed to create a bicycle or a few pairs of shoes, trivial compared to that needed for a car!
And no, we're not talking about Tokyo-style sleeping tubes. More likely we're talking about mid-rise apartment buildings--neighborhoods that can have solar arrays, rooftop or neighborhood gardens, chicken coops, and most of the other fun stuff you're talking about, in an urban environment that still has human scale.
There is a future for suburbia, but it's likely to be a lot more expensive and exclusive, to meet the inevitably greater energy costs of suburbia and the greater costs for the technological workarounds needed to maintain their existence in an energy-scarce future. Or a lot less pleasant--like the zombie suburbs we have on the West Coast, unsold surplus brand-new subdivisions on the edge of the urban fringe, surrounded by barren graded areas for unbuilt expansions of the subdivision that nobody will need for a long, long time.
The major problem with that is that the largest user of fossil fuels is China, and they are growing at a stupendous rate. We could fall off the face of the earth and in less than ten years, China would have replaced all those emissions. It's hard to blame them, they use less per capita, but the fact is energy reduction in the developed world really won't accomplish anything globally. And then there's the point that energy isn't all the same. If we replaced all the coal plants in the US with nuclear, we'd have far less radiation in the environment. For the planet, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, but less pollution here would be nice. China would happily burn all the coal we could sell them. Fact is, the only way we can limit GHGs globally is by leaving our fossil fuels in the ground. We're a huge producers of fossil fuels, I think it's third in oil, second in coal, top 5 in natural gas... could be wrong. We're also the second largest consumer of fossil fuels and the highest per capita. If we removed our fossil fuels from the market or better taxed them heavily to both artificially create the economic conditions of expensive fossil fuels and fund the alt-fuel infrastructure to replace it... but we'll never do that.
The major problem with that is that the largest user of fossil fuels is China, and they are growing at a stupendous rate. We could fall off the face of the earth and in less than ten years, China would have replaced all those emissions. It's hard to blame them, they use less per capita, but the fact is energy reduction in the developed world really won't accomplish anything globally. And then there's the point that energy isn't all the same. If we replaced all the coal plants in the US with nuclear, we'd have far less radiation in the environment. For the planet, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, but less pollution here would be nice. China would happily burn all the coal we could sell them. Fact is, the only way we can limit GHGs globally is by leaving our fossil fuels in the ground. We're a huge producers of fossil fuels, I think it's third in oil, second in coal, top 5 in natural gas... could be wrong. We're also the second largest consumer of fossil fuels and the highest per capita. If we removed our fossil fuels from the market or better taxed them heavily to both artificially create the economic conditions of expensive fossil fuels and fund the alt-fuel infrastructure to replace it... but we'll never do that.
Many in China also want to own cars and have big houses and big lots--they basically want the suburbs. If it happens, then we're in for a hell of a time. However, it'll probably correct itself somehow through scarcity making fuel prohibitively expensive or someone actually figuring out how to get incredibly cheap energy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
