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Of course, but preference and efficiency are different things: people who like living in cities have all the rights to clearly state that, as a personal prefere

by kkfx 2y ago

Of course, but preference and efficiency are different things: people who like living in cities have all the rights to clearly state that, as a personal preference, as I state mine, but they can't describe their life as efficient or ecological since that's definitively not the case. We do many inefficient things just because we like them, just think how absurd is smoking tobacco. Smokers have all the right to state "it's a pleasure for me", but a pleasure does not means automatically a good, sustainable and efficient thing. Personally I really like smoked salmon, however I life far from salmons natural environment, I still buy it because I can, but of course I know it's a very inefficient and absurd practice (specially since I know a bit the supply chain).

HDThoreaun 2y ago
My understanding is that carbon output per capita is far lower in nyc than in american suburbia. American suburbia is a pretty unique place, hard to say how it compares to europe, but at least in the US city livers generally are more ecological at least by some definitions. I dont think many people value efficiency as highly as you do. Tons of people are fine with being inefficient, they certainly wouldnt call their actions absurd. To me there's nothing wrong with transporting salmon, and Im honestly not really sure why you think there is. Most lox is factory farmed so not like its threatening the species.
- kkfx 2y ago
  Well, this is a counter example http://www.newgeography.com/content/006840-high-density-and-sustainability http://www.newgeography.com/content/006840-high-density-and-... and another one https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/20911-residents-of-helsinki-have-larger-consumption-footprint-than-many-others.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... beware the model I'm talking about is NOT the USA Suburbs model where there are ONLY residential settlements and ONLY commercial one well far away, I'm talking about the EU "Rivieras" model, where commerce and homes are mixed. Like a kind of large, spread, set of small villages.
  - HDThoreaun 2y ago
    These dont exist in the US. Gotta make do with whats available
    - kkfx 2y ago
      Well, what's available in large parts of the world are unsustainable settlements, some due to their place, too prone to floods, wildfires, ... many with subsidence problems, many with aging and irreplaceable infra and so on. So what's available are raw materials, industries and knowledge to start building something new. On the table we have the smart cities, natural evolution of present dense cities and distopic nightmares like the original Fordlandia. You can read about Google Sidewalk labs or Arkadag, Innopolis, Prospera, ... to form an idea of the near future. I prefer something else. Personally I left the big city for mountains in a not too far area, with enough services and there I see the green new deal working, in kWh terms I consume much less (considering I do not consume gas, diesel, petrol etc anymore), my life quality is improved much, local economy works better than many others so... I propose this as a model.
dgacmu 2y ago
Preferences are one thing, but you're factually wrong about the efficiency of cities vs suburbs. "Cities generally have significantly lower emissions than suburban areas, and the city-suburb gap is particularly large in older areas, like New York." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/taubman/files/glaeser_08_greencities.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/taub... "In metropolitan regions, suburbs emit up to four times the household emissions of their urban cores. While households located in more densely populated neighborhoods have a carbon footprint 50% below the national average, those in the suburbs emit up to twice the average. In metro areas such as New York, GHG emissions in these outlying jurisdictions are readily apparent: Emissions in Manhattan average lower than 38 tons per household annually, but in exurban jurisdictions such as Sussex County, N.J., these emissions exceed 66 tons per household annually." https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-not-just-cities-suburbs-and-exurbs-need-to-adopt-and-implement-climate-plans-too/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-not-just-cities-subur... You're radically under-estimating the efficiency gains of sharing infrastructure. Consider a simple metric like paved road-miles per person, or electricity-line-miles, or distance to school, etc. It's absolutely fine to have a preference for a rural environment - I grew up in the foothills of the mountains and I miss them terribly - but efficiency is a measurable metric, and cities win, for better or worse.
- kkfx 2y ago
  As answered below that's not what others have observed and more relevant is the capacity to evolve. A NEW mid-rise building and a NEW set of single family homes matching the number of apartment show that the mid-rise new building consume less in operational terms than the single family homes. Though it demand more raw materials to be built, and more infra around it to operate, and typically waterproofs the soil for a large area, killing soil humus, meaning consuming soil, while single family homes do not but the real difference arrive at the end of their useful life: rebuild single family homes it's a common task. Rebuild a mid-rise building it's another story. First of all you have to relocate not a single family for a little time but MANY families for a not so little time, secondly in most part of the world the building owner is not one, they are many and they have to agree rebuilt and how to do so, not counting the issue such large activity create in the surroundings. Long story short: multi story buildings tend to last in degrade for a long time, consuming than much more then newer homes. Homes can easily built in wood, well, it's not pure wood, but it's a self-renewing material in nature if we do not harvest too much. Bigger structures in wood can be made but they tend to be a nightmare. A tall building is not a set of piled containers that packed occupy less soil, it have to sustain it's own weight, have proper foundations, anti-seismic design, fire-safe design etc. Long story short is like a train: formally is far cheaper than a plane, if you just observe a single fully-loaded trip. But you have to count all you need to build and maintain the train and the relevant infra, and here things start to change much, than you have to count the flexibility over time: a plane can go from any A to B in a certain distance range, a train need rails and build/change rails take an enormous amount of work. Long story short again: yes FORMALLY under specific windows of observation the city is far more efficient, but in TCO terms is definitively not.
bilbo0s 2y ago
but they can't describe their life as efficient or ecological since that's definitively not the case This is absolutely true. Problem is living in a suburb is even less efficient and even less ecological than living in a city. That's kind of the issue. It's kind of like what they say about democracy. Living in a city is the worst way to live on this planet, except for all the others.

by kkfx 2y ago

HDThoreaun 2y ago

My understanding is that carbon output per capita is far lower in nyc than in american suburbia. American suburbia is a pretty unique place, hard to say how it compares to europe, but at least in the US city livers generally are more ecological at least by some definitions. I dont think many people value efficiency as highly as you do. Tons of people are fine with being inefficient, they certainly wouldnt call their actions absurd. To me there's nothing wrong with transporting salmon, and Im honestly not really sure why you think there is. Most lox is factory farmed so not like its threatening the species.

kkfx 2y ago
Well, this is a counter example http://www.newgeography.com/content/006840-high-density-and-sustainability http://www.newgeography.com/content/006840-high-density-and-... and another one https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/20911-residents-of-helsinki-have-larger-consumption-footprint-than-many-others.html https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... beware the model I'm talking about is NOT the USA Suburbs model where there are ONLY residential settlements and ONLY commercial one well far away, I'm talking about the EU "Rivieras" model, where commerce and homes are mixed. Like a kind of large, spread, set of small villages.
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  These dont exist in the US. Gotta make do with whats available
  - kkfx 2y ago
    Well, what's available in large parts of the world are unsustainable settlements, some due to their place, too prone to floods, wildfires, ... many with subsidence problems, many with aging and irreplaceable infra and so on. So what's available are raw materials, industries and knowledge to start building something new. On the table we have the smart cities, natural evolution of present dense cities and distopic nightmares like the original Fordlandia. You can read about Google Sidewalk labs or Arkadag, Innopolis, Prospera, ... to form an idea of the near future. I prefer something else. Personally I left the big city for mountains in a not too far area, with enough services and there I see the green new deal working, in kWh terms I consume much less (considering I do not consume gas, diesel, petrol etc anymore), my life quality is improved much, local economy works better than many others so... I propose this as a model.

dgacmu 2y ago

Preferences are one thing, but you're factually wrong about the efficiency of cities vs suburbs. "Cities generally have significantly lower emissions than suburban areas, and the city-suburb gap is particularly large in older areas, like New York." https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/taubman/files/glaeser_08_greencities.pdf https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/taub... "In metropolitan regions, suburbs emit up to four times the household emissions of their urban cores. While households located in more densely populated neighborhoods have a carbon footprint 50% below the national average, those in the suburbs emit up to twice the average. In metro areas such as New York, GHG emissions in these outlying jurisdictions are readily apparent: Emissions in Manhattan average lower than 38 tons per household annually, but in exurban jurisdictions such as Sussex County, N.J., these emissions exceed 66 tons per household annually." https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-not-just-cities-suburbs-and-exurbs-need-to-adopt-and-implement-climate-plans-too/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/its-not-just-cities-subur... You're radically under-estimating the efficiency gains of sharing infrastructure. Consider a simple metric like paved road-miles per person, or electricity-line-miles, or distance to school, etc. It's absolutely fine to have a preference for a rural environment - I grew up in the foothills of the mountains and I miss them terribly - but efficiency is a measurable metric, and cities win, for better or worse.

kkfx 2y ago
As answered below that's not what others have observed and more relevant is the capacity to evolve. A NEW mid-rise building and a NEW set of single family homes matching the number of apartment show that the mid-rise new building consume less in operational terms than the single family homes. Though it demand more raw materials to be built, and more infra around it to operate, and typically waterproofs the soil for a large area, killing soil humus, meaning consuming soil, while single family homes do not but the real difference arrive at the end of their useful life: rebuild single family homes it's a common task. Rebuild a mid-rise building it's another story. First of all you have to relocate not a single family for a little time but MANY families for a not so little time, secondly in most part of the world the building owner is not one, they are many and they have to agree rebuilt and how to do so, not counting the issue such large activity create in the surroundings. Long story short: multi story buildings tend to last in degrade for a long time, consuming than much more then newer homes. Homes can easily built in wood, well, it's not pure wood, but it's a self-renewing material in nature if we do not harvest too much. Bigger structures in wood can be made but they tend to be a nightmare. A tall building is not a set of piled containers that packed occupy less soil, it have to sustain it's own weight, have proper foundations, anti-seismic design, fire-safe design etc. Long story short is like a train: formally is far cheaper than a plane, if you just observe a single fully-loaded trip. But you have to count all you need to build and maintain the train and the relevant infra, and here things start to change much, than you have to count the flexibility over time: a plane can go from any A to B in a certain distance range, a train need rails and build/change rails take an enormous amount of work. Long story short again: yes FORMALLY under specific windows of observation the city is far more efficient, but in TCO terms is definitively not.

bilbo0s 2y ago

but they can't describe their life as efficient or ecological since that's definitively not the case This is absolutely true. Problem is living in a suburb is even less efficient and even less ecological than living in a city. That's kind of the issue. It's kind of like what they say about democracy. Living in a city is the worst way to live on this planet, except for all the others.