3 ms·
> it needs to be to force people to use dense housing and public transit or cycling/walking. I never understood why people believe living in dense cities is go
by funcDropShadow 4y ago
> it needs to be to force people to use dense housing and public transit or cycling/walking.
I never understood why people believe living in dense cities is good for the environment. Could you explain why you think so? I get the transit argument, but imho everything else points to the opposite. Cities are warmer than rural areas. They cannot store the water from rain, they have to transport it away. They have problems with air pollution, not only because of cars. They disconnect people with nature, because they cannot experience nature day to day. The air is much better outside of cities. You can't buy healthy food around the corner from the farmer that produced it, etc.
- arthur2e5 4y agoDense cities consistently produces lower per-capita carbon emissions. This has to do with transit, with transportation of material, with houses (yes, townhouses too!) not having as many walls to lose heat from, etc. We can and have designed cities that properly handle rainfall. The issue is not density, but the lack of water-permeable surfaces. Suburban parking lots and wide freeways cause the same issues and on a larger scale due to the low density. The lack of nature is, again, solved not just once. In Amsterdam they have dense urban areas right next to actual farms with cows, free-range ones. Again, you save space for nature by going high density. Compared to sprawling out with cul-de-sacs a you have more people getting closer to nature more often. Same argument for farmers traveling to town. (I do sense a bit of mismatch between conceptions of non-dense-city living spaces. You seem to be talking about something that combines the environment of rural areas with the convenience of suburbia, but these two seldom co-exist without wasting a lot of tax money on maintenance…)