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Additionally to suburban (housing) sprawl, workplaces should also be distributed across the town. This way the whole population will not go north in the morning, while everyone go south in the evening. The downtown should be more for shopping and evening hangout place, not a block of offices and factories.
Distributed workplaces have always been part of sprawl--it's not a new idea. And generally it makes traffic worse, not better, because the connection between work and housing becomes completely severed. Los Angeles' traffic is so bad because it is such a decentralized network. Downtown LA has a high concentration of jobs, but most of the people who work there don't live anywhere nearby. Because there are multiple job centers and a disconnect between where people live and work, instead of a single network there are multiple redundant networks of traffic in all directions, with resulting losses of efficiency.
If you look at traditional (pre-automobile) cities, downtowns were not strictly blocks of offices and factories, nor are they that way today. They had offices and factories, AND shopping and evening hangouts, AND residences. Not everyone lived there, but many did. They were multi-functional spaces, rather than spaces intended for 8 hours per day of occupancy and 16 hours of vacancy.
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Right now there are forces to push EVERYONE, at least everyone in the younger generations the first home buyers to settle in the downtown. In the Bay area and most US cities the downtowns are not comparable to Paris or London or Munich or Berlin or Edinburgh downtown. I would love to live in downtown Paris, but downtown Sunnyvale???
Some will disagree but I don't see anyone pushing for everyone to live downtown. A lot more people want to live downtown these days, but that's a pull by people who want to be there, not a push of people who don't want to be there. There are still plenty of suburbs under construction.
What's wrong with downtown Sunnyvale? If you're looking for a pleasant, small-town atmosphere you could do worse.
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One thing to make sprawl walkable, is to make local downtowns in each neighbourhood, with shops, supermarket, restaurants and pubs. Located around a centre point like old European cities, not a strip mall along a road. Even strip malls by themselves are not walkable, they are too long in one direction. A circular arrangement would mean you can walk across in 10 minutes and get to any of the 100 shops or restaurants. And of course the sidewalks.
What you're talking about here is called "New Urbanism," or "Traditional Neighborhood Design." It's based on exactly this idea--the old traditional idea of small town centers and neighborhood centers. The problem is, it's tough to build functional traditional neighborhoods and still expect them to cater to the automobile. Strip malls are less walkable because they depend on large parking lots to allow people to visit. Those old European cities were not designed with the automobile in mind, their streets are narrow and they don't have big parking lots. People lived and worked in the same neighborhood because there was no alternative to doing so until the introduction of public transit and then the automobile. Designing for the automobile and designing for pedestrians and walkability are contradictory--it's like trying to design a snow parka that doubles as a bikini.
There have been many experiments with "New Urbanist" design in greenfields, but what happens is they work exactly like their car-centric cousins, people drive to work and drive home, generally ignoring the faux-quaint "European style downtown" which looks like, but doesn't function like, their visual equivalent. Designing for people means making less room for cars, but then you get accused of declaring war on the automobile, or wanting to force people into Soviet-style apartment blocks. And if there's anything that infuriates some folks more than that, it's the mere suggestion of making their suburbs more "European."
So, I agree with your point, but it disagrees with your other points.
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Back to the original topic:
The bay area governments aggressively push against sprawl, their reasoning is the CO2, that's it. They keep talking about the CO2... Their argument can be reversed with mine. They did not consider technology, solar energy, electric cars and home energy storage. With that considered they are defeating their purpose.
I think you're oversimplifying the case against sprawl, and it sounds like one of your proposed solutions (return to traditional city building in our cities and suburbs) is pretty much exactly what anti-sprawl advocates are calling for: more walkable, traditional neighborhoods so we won't need to drive as much, and making our cities more comfortable, desirable places to live for the people who want to live there, not the people who don't want to live there.
Actually, solar array rather than rooftop is a lot more efficient. Thing is, homeowners are a lot easier to hoodwink. Plus we've got all the tax credits which large solar arrays don't have access to. Facts are energy in this country is dirt cheap and until that changes, no one will really care about efficiency. That has a lot to do with why buses are less energy efficient per passenger mile than cars. Fuel efficient routes just aren't really of importance to transit agencies.
As for hyro, that's because Sacramento had a population of less than 30,000 in 1900 and people didn't have air conditioning, data centers, traffic lights on every third block, 70" TVs, computers, and five iGizmos per person like they do. In otherwords, you had a tiny population that used very little electricity per capita by today's standards. It's not like there's a great abundance of prime hydro dam locations. Those all have been built on long ago. SMUD gets about 25% of its power from hydro on a normal year, much less in a drought year like now.
To put my earlier post in other words, I think some people in the urban planning field think people should conform to some ideal city form. As the United States is founded on the principle of people voting and our society is highly innovative, I believe living arrangements should conform to what the majority of people want. The prosperity of the people should be the end result, rather than making the people a means to an end, for example, a densified city as the end result. Our goal should be prosperity and health for as many people as possible, not creating bigger cities. The true solution is probably a middle ground between city and sprawl.
Humans are not that smart to make those decisions to be honest.
Distributed workplaces have always been part of sprawl--it's not a new idea. And generally it makes traffic worse, not better, because the connection between work and housing becomes completely severed. Los Angeles' traffic is so bad because it is such a decentralized network. Downtown LA has a high concentration of jobs, but most of the people who work there don't live anywhere nearby. Because there are multiple job centers and a disconnect between where people live and work, instead of a single network there are multiple redundant networks of traffic in all directions, with resulting losses of efficiency.
On the upside, no one travels very far. So while the traffic is really suck, everyone isn't trying to get into Manhattan like New York. The result is that commutes are shorter and people save time as well as resources since they travel much shorter distances.
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If you look at traditional (pre-automobile) cities, downtowns were not strictly blocks of offices and factories, nor are they that way today. They had offices and factories, AND shopping and evening hangouts, AND residences. Not everyone lived there, but many did. They were multi-functional spaces, rather than spaces intended for 8 hours per day of occupancy and 16 hours of vacancy.
No, that's actually incorrect. First it was railroad suburbs, then it was streetcars, then it was automobiles. As accessibility of transportation increased, the number of people who could afford not to live in places like the slums of the LES rose. When it was dependent on horse-drawn carriages and railroad suburbs, it was a pretty small number. As costs came down with streetcars and then eventually automobiles, that option opened up to more people.
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Some will disagree but I don't see anyone pushing for everyone to live downtown. A lot more people want to live downtown these days, but that's a pull by people who want to be there, not a push of people who don't want to be there. There are still plenty of suburbs under construction.
What's wrong with downtown Sunnyvale? If you're looking for a pleasant, small-town atmosphere you could do worse.
I agree on both points. There's also been a fundamental shift from the city side as well. Sacramento is now desperate to repopulate the downtown area to the point they'll spend $240k per 200 square foot unit to buy a cameo citizen to live in downtown. Hotel Berry nears debut after 16-month renovation - Sacramento Business Journal
That's quite the shift from a few decades ago when they wanted nobody to live in downtown.
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What you're talking about here is called "New Urbanism," or "Traditional Neighborhood Design." It's based on exactly this idea--the old traditional idea of small town centers and neighborhood centers. The problem is, it's tough to build functional traditional neighborhoods and still expect them to cater to the automobile. Strip malls are less walkable because they depend on large parking lots to allow people to visit. Those old European cities were not designed with the automobile in mind, their streets are narrow and they don't have big parking lots. People lived and worked in the same neighborhood because there was no alternative to doing so until the introduction of public transit and then the automobile. Designing for the automobile and designing for pedestrians and walkability are contradictory--it's like trying to design a snow parka that doubles as a bikini.
There have been many experiments with "New Urbanist" design in greenfields, but what happens is they work exactly like their car-centric cousins, people drive to work and drive home, generally ignoring the faux-quaint "European style downtown" which looks like, but doesn't function like, their visual equivalent. Designing for people means making less room for cars, but then you get accused of declaring war on the automobile, or wanting to force people into Soviet-style apartment blocks. And if there's anything that infuriates some folks more than that, it's the mere suggestion of making their suburbs more "European."
Check out Downtown San Mateo. It's pretty damn busy for someplace everyone ignores. Is it exactly car friendly? No. On the other hand, it's not car hostile. It's pretty easy to get there, park, do you shopping and wander around the pedestrian friendly environs, and go home. It's not exactly friendly for driving from one store to the next while in downtown San Mateo.
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I think you're oversimplifying the case against sprawl, and it sounds like one of your proposed solutions (return to traditional city building in our cities and suburbs) is pretty much exactly what anti-sprawl advocates are calling for: more walkable, traditional neighborhoods so we won't need to drive as much, and making our cities more comfortable, desirable places to live for the people who want to live there, not the people who don't want to live there.
Problem is they are caught up in the anti-car paradigm. Until they can figure out a way to sell something like Downtown San Mateo which is neither sprawl nor anti-car, they'll get nowhere. Most people get around by car and don't have any interest in less effective means of transportation being artificially forced on them. Cars break down at very high density. They don't break down at medium density. Medium density like most of the Peninsula/South Bay, or LA works very well with cars. Much of it is also very walkable. Silver Lake, for example. It ain't no walkers paradise, but you can easily walk there and get things done. You can also easily drive a car there. It isn't Manhattan, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a place where you can walk, drive, enjoy peace and quiet. Fifty kinds of takeout at 2 a.m., however, it does not offer.
In European small towns the size of downtown compared to the town's total population is a lot larger than here in California. There is a lot more stuff in their downtowns, that makes worth while going there few times a week. Also many streets are narrow and some streets are closed for cars. What they do is they have large parking lots around the perimeter of the downtown, so you drive there, park, then walk in the city shop to shop or restaurant to restaurant. In larger cities like London, Paris or Budapest, you use combination of public transport (between local centres) and walk. Driving in these cities is not a good idea. If you go by car (from another city), then you park in the edge of town and use public transport then walking too.
Inner cities don't have the surface area per resident that the suburbs have. In the suburb you could have 20-40kWh solar energy per family, while in a 4 story condo block you could have maybe 5kWh. A normal daily commute is 10miles, which is 3-12kWh energy. A household uses 10-20kWh energy per day for the home itself.
Now where else than the roof would you put the solar cells? A public transit authority would require a huge amount of land next to the city to be populated with solar panels. Unlikely to buy a large amount of land for solar only, near the city, as real estate is expensive. With my idea you don't need additional real estate for the energy generation. The other problem with centralized power plants is the transmission efficiency. Currently it is like 70% lost on the power network, that is 30% efficiency. If you have point of load power plants (at every house), then you decreased the loss from 70% to 0%, 333% efficiency increase, reducing cost and required surface area by 2 thirds.
One more thing, public transport in the city is extremely slow, due to many stops and longer (snake-like) routes to cover more customers. The same distance (end-to-end) by bus can take 5x more time to travel, I tried.
Having less surface area per resident is a good thing--that's what makes a city walkable. But you seem stuck on the idea that solar arrays can only be placed on the roof of your own house, rather than in large arrays that can be used to power cities. There are also plenty of places to put solar panels besides on top of homes--how about on top of commercial buildings? Factories? Government buildings? Shopping malls? Shading parking lots? Highways? Old landfills? Keeping in mind that an urban neighborhood uses less power per capita (due to shared walls and less driving) and you don't have to generate as much power per capita. You're also assuming that solar is the only form of clean power generation--add in geothermal, hydroelectric, tidal, wind, etcetera.
My daily commute uses 0 kWh, because I walk to work--which means a solar panel on my house can generate that much less power. And because I own a single-family home, I have the full-sized panel--why can't I make a little extra cash selling my excess 3-12 kwH to my apartment-dwelling neighbor next door who drives an electric taxi? Using distributed networks for power and computing, it would be easy to transfer power and value in that fashion. Less need for a point of load powerplant.
Alameda County powers their buses with hydrogen--they release water vapor as exhaust.
Another factor you're ignoring is the pollution inherent in building road infrastructure like freeways and parking lots.
Public transit doesn't have to be that slow--and it's typically slow in crowded cities with bad traffic because it's just as slow to drive. The difference is what the rider can be doing. When I was in grad school I took the bus instead of driving because it took 30 minutes either way, but I could spend the trip studying or reading or doing things other than getting aggravated at the driver ahead of me. The slowest and least efficient transit routes are the ones out in the suburbs, where population densities are low--they're higher in cities where people live closer together, neighborhoods are mixed use, and streets are laid out in grids instead of feeders and cul-de-sacs (note: these are additive features, not intended to suggest that they are only found in cities or found in all cities.)
The main failure of your approach is you're assuming every man is an island--instead of taking advantage of the power of network effects and efficiencies of scale, which work best in cities, to work collaboratively. That doesn't have to mean socialism, either--the free market works collaboratively too.
Oddly enough, you can bike and use ecofriendly vehicles all you want, but the biggest polluters and energy users are the businesses themselves. If we focus on consuming less energy and creating less waste at work as well with how buildings are designed, that would reduce pollution within urban sprawl.
We're still years away from it. Electric and fuel cell cars are nowhere near mainstream yet. Tesla's "not Model E," has a chance at being the first mainstream electric car, but I really don't think it will deliver on that premise. It will end up being more expensive than projected which will put it outside the genuinely affordable range, even with the overly generous subsidies, of the new-car-buying population. Plus more than half the population does not buy new cars. We're still at least two decades away from any sizeable proportion of cars on the road being electric. Hybrids just now really hitting a tipping point with sales really beginning to take off. Still, hybrids represent a very small percentage of sales and will for several more years. Electric or even electric/PHEV market saturation is a long ways from being realized.
No, but I'd estimate the average car would last on the road about 15 years (I drive an 18 year old car, but it has low miles for the average, and it's one expensive repair job away from the junkyard). Smaller car sizes plus hybrids would drastically reduce transportation emissions. Few places in the US are growing fast enough that they could be rebuilt for less and shorter car trips in a truly substantial fashion, neighborhoods last longer than cars and more impractical to change. Still, even with more fuel efficient cars, sprawling areas would consume more energy per capita than compact ones but the difference wouldn't matter as much.
Electric cars will be harder to adopt even if they become cheaper due to range and inconvenient fuel-up. I think they might eventually catch on but they'll be a niche.
Putting solar panels on every roof and buying everyone an electric car, is not a realistic solution.
I don't think solar panels are an unrealistic solution. I would hardly call myself an environmentalist and even I've looked into solar panels. There are a lot of companies that install them. And from what I recall, they weren't even that expensive.
It doesn't take much work to Google a company and have them come out to give you an estimate.
On the upside, no one travels very far. So while the traffic is really suck, everyone isn't trying to get into Manhattan like New York. The result is that commutes are shorter and people save time as well as resources since they travel much shorter distances.
Except the NYC metro has the lowest transportation energy use per capita in the country. The majority of Manhattan commuters are either in or near Manhattan, and much of the rest of them are entering by electric train, which when near fully occupied does have low carbon dioxide emissions per capita. Relatively dense, decentralized metros don't do as well as NYC, but do better than sprawling ones.
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No, that's actually incorrect. First it was railroad suburbs, then it was streetcars, then it was automobiles. As accessibility of transportation increased, the number of people who could afford not to live in places like the slums of the LES rose. When it was dependent on horse-drawn carriages and railroad suburbs, it was a pretty small number. As costs came down with streetcars and then eventually automobiles, that option opened up to more people.
Few cities had slums as dense as the Lower East Side 100 years ago. Actually, nowhere else in the developed world did. London was overcrowded and a similar size and didn't have as extreme overcrowding. Geography plus massive numbers of poor immigrants arriving at once led to worse conditions in NYC. By the time most could afford a subway fare, the overcrowding in the LES and similar neighborhoods was mostly gone and most city residents didn't live in those places.
[quote]Check out Downtown San Mateo. It's pretty damn busy for someplace everyone ignores. Is it exactly car friendly? No. On the other hand, it's not car hostile. It's pretty easy to get there, park, do you shopping and wander around the pedestrian friendly environs, and go home. It's not exactly friendly for driving from one store to the next while in downtown San Mateo.
And a place like downtown San Mateo is far friendlier at supporting non-automobile forms of transportation than typical suburbia even if driving is still the most convenient method. The fact most offices aren't in places like downtown San Mateo makes transit less effective. In any case, for the peninsula, a good way to prevent a transportation energy use increase would be to encourage infill in the inner Bay Area (preferably near existing downtowns) instead of neighborhoods constructed in the Central Valley.
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Problem is they are caught up in the anti-car paradigm. Until they can figure out a way to sell something like Downtown San Mateo which is neither sprawl nor anti-car, they'll get nowhere. Most people get around by car and don't have any interest in less effective means of transportation being artificially forced on them.
Most "New Urbanist" proposals except in existing big cities aren't that dense; they're usually less dense than a place like downtown San Mateo. Their usual goal is to replicate a downtown San Mateo.
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