Most people would not think it, but some of the most environmentally friendly places to live are not idyllic small communities or suburbs spread out across the countryside intermixed with forests and farms, but concrete jungles like New York City, Chicago or San Francisco.
""Some have even suggested Manhattan is one of the more sustainable places in the country,"" said James LaGro, UW-Madison urban planning professor.
Many Americans, however, don't live in places like Boston, Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia; many Americans live in suburbs. American suburbs are characteristically sprawling, car-oriented places made up of subdivisions, office parks, shopping centers, malls and parking lots. It is a way of life that developed in the post-war years. According to Elizabeth Tryon, assistant director of community based learning at the Morgridge Center for Public Service, the suburbs are no longer ecologically feasible.
Suburban Sprawl
""In terms of sustainability urban residents have … fewer impacts compared to suburban residents,"" said LaGro.
LaGro thinks cities could hold the answer to environmental problems affecting Americans and people globally. Cities are inherently sustainable in ways that sprawling suburbs are not. Suburban sprawl is an area where the land used for development exceeds the population growth rate. Sprawling suburbs use greater amounts of land and have a greater affect on the quality of the environment than higher density cities, according to LaGro.
""People out in nature living idyllic … actually have a bigger [carbon] footprint than us living in cities,"" Tryon said.
According to Tryon, even though cities use land at a much higher impact than suburbs and rural communities, the amount of land used and affected by cities is much less than sprawling suburbs or suburban metropolises. However, the amount of land used and affected by cities is much less than suburbs.
If the 200 American cities with a population of 100,000 or greater were laid out at their current average density of 3,100 people per square mile they would require more than 20,000 square miles of land. Conversely, those same 200 cities at the average density of America's 10 densest cities with over 500,000 residents would require less than 5,500 square miles.
Sprawl also means increased resource consumption because of the need to expand infrastructure over increasingly large areas.
The developed world is growing. Every year more people are entering the middle class, according to Tryon.
""We use a quarter of the world's resources with less than 10 percent of the population,"" she said.
According to Tryon, environmental problems are not local in scope.
""What somebody does in Wisconsin can affect somebody living in Baden-Württemberg, Germany and pollution in China can result in drought in sub-Saharan Africa,"" she said.
LaGro said he thinks that in terms of our global impact on the environment, rebuilding cities in a more sustainable way helps the global environment.
Automobile Sustainability
According to Tryon, dependence on the car plays a significant role in the unsustainable nature of American suburbia.
""Cars contribute a lot to our carbon footprint,"" she said. ""But it's more easily controlled … you can do more with it in terms of using alternative transportation.""
According to LaGro, the intense suburban sprawl and automobile dependence may cause some of the undesirable city qualities: Water and air pollution. He said that in urban areas air pollution is caused in great part by exhaust from the cars of people commuting into cities because there are not alternatives. Water quality worsens because of runoff caused by paved surfaces necessary for high rates of car use.
Cities that are dense and mixed-use are walkable, bike-able and can sustain extensive mass transit systems.
""[Cities] tend to have much better access to public transit,"" LaGro said. ""There tends to be greater access to the civic services, retail, commercial services, the types of things that people use on a daily, weekly basis.""
Government policy has a lot to do with how our urban landscape looks.
""It has a lot to do with the inertia of public policy,"" LaGro said. ""A lot of times laws and past ways of doing business have to change. In many cases there needs to be strong leadership at the local level.""
According to LaGro, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley have made sustainable policy part of their leadership.
Sustainable Cities
Older suburbs offer a model for sustainable suburbanization. These suburbs are often developed at a higher density than most modern suburbs. They are also walkable and bikeable; they contain a mix of housing types and styles as well as mixed-use neighborhoods that don't require a car. They're connected to the larger urban area by streetcar lines, El systems or commuter rail lines.
""The Monroe Street neighborhood was built as a streetcar neighborhood … nobody had to go more than a block or two to walk to a streetcar,"" Tryon said. Tryon, who lives in the neighborhood, said she rarely had to drive.
Similar to the Monroe Street neighborhood, the Vauban neighborhood in Freiburg, Germany is connected to the rest of Freiburg by the local streetcar and regional bus systems the same way Monroe Street was once connected to the Square, Tryon said.
""A lot of people who live in Vauban take the streetcar into town, and they rent cars when they want to go on vacation where you can't go on the train,"" Tryon said.
Vauban is entirely car-free, energy efficient, automobile access is limited to certain municipal vehicles and residents who own a car must buy a 17,000 ($25,000) parking space for each car at a community lot outside the neighborhood, according to Tryon.
""I would think Vauban is the most sustainable neighborhood I've ever seen,"" Tryon said. ""The whole philosophy is to be as sustainable as you can. The houses are built to passive house technique, which saves 90 percent on energy bills.""
According to Tryon, houses made under the passive house technique are insulated almost entirely with the body heat of the residents and the heat of appliances.
While cities still have room to adapt they may hold the key to achieving sustainability.
""We have enough fossil fuels to help us fix the problems. I would not call [these changes] sacrifices, but an opportunity,"" Tryon said.
