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> but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. Absolutely Right! And, it would decrease pollution and global warming because people

> but it would be far more environmentally friendly to build a high rise. Absolutely Right! And, it would decrease pollution and global warming because people's commutes would be much much shorter, as they wouldn't be forced to commute from 80 miles away, like it currently is in the Bay Area.

pyrale 7y ago
Food and building material would still need to commute, and the amount of energy it represents probably can't be decreased enough to make dense cities a good thing for climate change.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Food needs to be transported either way. Dense cities are better because the trucks need to make less stops on the delivery end.
  - pyrale 7y ago
    The number of stops is probably less important than the distance traveled by food. Towns or small cities can have food produces locally. In large cities, food has to travel across the city, and on top of that it has to travel across the space required for farming. This is a non-concern now of course, but in a world where we want to reduce transportation at scales serious enough to fight climate change, large cities will be a liability.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      Only if everybody is a subsistence farmer. If you want a modern lifestyle a large dense city is best: all the things you want from modern life are close and produced locally. The exceptions are food (food needs a lot of area to produce), and raw materials. These two are small enough that if they were our only use of transport (meaning you walk everywhere) they wouldn't affect climate change.
- lostapathy 7y ago
  Building material "commuting" is a one time thing, not every day for the rest of your life like getting to work.
  - pyrale 7y ago
    What we can observe in large cities is that there is a constant stream of new buildings and construction works. The "build once" model works for one building and over one lifetime, but at the scale of a large city, construction work is a constant process.

pyrale 7y ago

Food and building material would still need to commute, and the amount of energy it represents probably can't be decreased enough to make dense cities a good thing for climate change.

bluGill 7y ago
Food needs to be transported either way. Dense cities are better because the trucks need to make less stops on the delivery end.
- pyrale 7y ago
  The number of stops is probably less important than the distance traveled by food. Towns or small cities can have food produces locally. In large cities, food has to travel across the city, and on top of that it has to travel across the space required for farming. This is a non-concern now of course, but in a world where we want to reduce transportation at scales serious enough to fight climate change, large cities will be a liability.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Only if everybody is a subsistence farmer. If you want a modern lifestyle a large dense city is best: all the things you want from modern life are close and produced locally. The exceptions are food (food needs a lot of area to produce), and raw materials. These two are small enough that if they were our only use of transport (meaning you walk everywhere) they wouldn't affect climate change.
lostapathy 7y ago
Building material "commuting" is a one time thing, not every day for the rest of your life like getting to work.
- pyrale 7y ago
  What we can observe in large cities is that there is a constant stream of new buildings and construction works. The "build once" model works for one building and over one lifetime, but at the scale of a large city, construction work is a constant process.