Restating the Obvious

There's something a bit sad about the fact that Ryan Avent had to go through the trouble to write a long, detailed explanation of why Joel Kotkin and Ali Moderres are wrong and residents of dense cities are, in fact, responsible for less carbon emissions than are residents of far-flung exurbs. Smaller houses + shorter distances between things + more alternatives to driving + economies of scale in heating/cooling/etc. large structures = less carbon. Why The Washington Post decided it would be "provocative" (or something) to argue otherwise is a bit beyond me.

It is, however, always worth pointing out that this sort of discussion is a bit useless. What we need to do is put a price on carbon emissions, either through a tax or auctioned emissions permits. Then we can let the miracle of prices and markets do its work and not worry about personally trying to calculate the carbon implications of each and every life choice. Meanwhile, contrary to Kotkin's ceaseless campaign to convince us that people don't want to live in cities, even now it's the case that real estate in big cities is famously expensive. If we price carbon correctly and deregulate, making it easier for people to build and live where they like, I think there's every reason to believe we'll wind up with more city-dwellers.

Comments

On why [Yogi Berra] no longer went to a trendy St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Berra

Also, in and close to large cities, solutions such as mass transit become a factor, one which varies drastically by place and politics.

Posted by El Cid | October 21, 2007 3:18 PM

Cities aren't expensive. It's only the safe parts of big cities that are expensive.

Posted by bjk | October 21, 2007 3:31 PM

This post is 135% correct. It's so correct that we had to invent 8 new dimensions to contain its correctness.

(Fortunately, these dimensions re very tightly rolled up, like infinitely long ladyfinger cookies...)

Posted by Mr. Noah | October 21, 2007 4:28 PM

So much wrong where there should be so much right.

Large cities are complicated 'things' where decisions involving billions must be made for timespans reckoning in decades. Deregulating and letting the 'magic of the market' work ain't gonna solve jackshit in these environments.

Building high-density involves non-trivial investments that can only be made wisely by sophisticated socio-political organizations. The result is what you see around you- faltering baby steps by regional planners, often thrown off balance by dinosaur entrepreneurs.

Think, people, think- when you allow the richest one percent of the population to own 50% of the wealth, it's not the time for 'creative anarchy'.

Posted by serial catowner | October 21, 2007 4:33 PM

Oh, so now you like the market, but in the post right above all you can do is complain about how your "foot hurt" and went the doctor's office "to be told what to do with my foot not to do independent research."

So which is it, you flip-flopper?

Posted by Leo | October 21, 2007 4:47 PM

Wait. Reduce carbon emissions and improve transportation with deregulation and market prices? Surely this will be opposed conservatives everywhere.

Posted by nelziq | October 21, 2007 5:01 PM

If you want to consider how much carbon emissions you are responsible for, where you live is a second order effect. Far more important is how much you earn, or how much wealth you have inherited. So this idea that people who live in cities are somehow inherently holy and that people who live in suburbs and rural areas are somehow inherently evil is laughable.

Posted by wab | October 21, 2007 5:04 PM

It's difficult to develop brownfields like empty industrial areas in Detroit. The soil is contaminated with heavy metals, and cleaning it is expensive.

Second, Detroit has an inefficient and corrupt city government. To get permits for anything, you must pay money to "consultants" who are family members of the mayor of Detroit.

It's cheaper and easier, even for moderate density 3 to 4 story apartment building, to build on empty land in the suburbs, or in rural areas.

The bribes are cheaper too. Donate $1000 to a campaign committee to the mayor of a suburb, and he'll love you to death. At worst, you have to finish off the basement of his house.

Posted by stm177 | October 21, 2007 5:52 PM

Are you sure that air-conditioning costs are lower in cities? There is a well-known "urban heat-island" effect, that makes cities hotter than the countryside. Basically, having a bunch of people packed close together raises the temperature (independent of global warming - classical Rome would have been warmer than the rest of Latium). So cooling to a given temperature in summer would take more energy in the city than in the suburbs. This doesn't refute the general claim that cities are more energy efficient, but may make the calculation a bit more complex.

Posted by Jim Barnett | October 21, 2007 6:37 PM

It's interesting that the issue to Avent is emissions and not footprint. You need to factor in the grass and trees of the suburbs before you can look down your nose at the sprawl. Also the concentrated waste that runs untreated into every waterway surrounding places like NYC and Chicago is an incredible environmental hazard. Anybody out there eat fish from the Hudson? Do people even swim in the Hudson? Denser cities mean more highly concentrated waste. How old is the NYC sewer system? What are the costs associated with rebuilding large portions of it and making it more efficient in order to handle a larger population?

But if we are going to talk about emissions, shouldn't someone mention taxicabs? Just because there are mass transportation options in urban areas doesn't mean that there's not a car sitting outside running at all hours of the day and night, even with no passengers. And what about Times Square and such places? Cities use much more energy in lighting signs and billboards, streets and alleyways, and even brag about never sleeping or turning them off. There's a lot to be said for sleepy little towns.

Avent's article was full of phrases such as "likely to prove", "may exist", and "almost certainly." Matt is correct that there is something sad about the article, but it's not because it restated what was obvious, it's because the argument was so lame.

Posted by Just Karl | October 21, 2007 8:17 PM

Does this mean Yglesias is against opinion writers trying to be provocative rather than accurate?

Posted by Warren Terra | October 21, 2007 9:04 PM

Re: If we price carbon correctly and deregulate, making it easier for people to build and live where they like, I think there's every reason to believe we'll wind up with more city-dwellers.

This isn't even a case of economic illiteracy: it's failure of plain old common sense. Raise the cost of living for the middle and working classes and they will be better able to afford to live in high-priced cities? Matt, have you been drinking tonight?

Posted by Jonf | October 21, 2007 9:26 PM

If I may I pile on, Matt, you have a blind spot here that I suspect is due to your upbringing and present circumstance. Upping the density in cities is only a partial soloution (if that). As I've said here many times, a large percentage of americans want to own a home, rather than live in an apartment or condo. People with kids especially do not want to live in apartments or condos, and building apartments and condos is what upping the density means. Home ownership is a huge reason why suburbs exist (that and fear of sending with children to school with black children). You have to come up with a soloution that doesn't require changing a very-long held cultural prefernece.

Posted by cw | October 21, 2007 9:46 PM

Nice to see Just Karl checking in from the early 70s (though why anyone would wan to stay stuck in the waning Nixon years eludes me). Well, Just Karl, while you were in suspended animation, great changes have occurred.

Now it is the cities that discharge purified wastewater and the suburbs that poison the streams and aquifers with untreated wastes. When state and federal laws (or, in my county, the impending death of the oyster industry) force a clean-up, the low population density of the suburbs means a high bill for every homeowner (or renter, who naturally pay their landlord's costs).

When people are driving 40 miles to get to a job, and watching gas go towards $4 a gallon, they start to rethink their supposedly innate desire to live in the burbs.

Heck, back in about '85 I put some serious study into this and found that even then the higher cost of being in walking distance of the city core was balanced by the costs of owning and driving a car from the burbs.

Matt is right about one thing- economics will crumple up and throw in the trashcan the anti-city and pro-suburb arguments on this thread, just as responsible regulation has made Just Karl's dream of the polluting city a distant and receding memory of a nightmare.

Posted by serial catowner | October 22, 2007 9:03 AM

"If you want to consider how much carbon emissions you are responsible for, where you live is a second order effect. Far more important is how much you earn, or how much wealth you have inherited. So this idea that people who live in cities are somehow inherently holy and that people who live in suburbs and rural areas are somehow inherently evil is laughable."

Do you have a shred of evidence to support your claim that carbon emissions is linked to income? Because really, that is the only laughable thing here.

Posted by freddiemac | October 22, 2007 9:50 AM

"economics will crumple up and throw in the trashcan the anti-city and pro-suburb arguments on this thread, "

Just like economics crumpled up and threw in the trashcan those crazy farmers subsidies and our ethanol obssesion. People in the suburbs vote and there are actually more people in the suburbs than there are in the urban cores. And we are not jut talking about the suburbs, we are talking about people in cities in single family homes. They are no more going to want to give up their homes so that developers can build apartments to hold all the people forced to move from the suburbs than the people in the suburbs are going to want to move into those apartments. What a huge affluent chunk of the population want in this country is going to matter. You have to deal with the realities of the situation, not just what you think is "right."

Posted by cw | October 22, 2007 9:53 AM