For metro regions across the country, transit systems might well become the difference between a functioning regional economy and an economy in chaotic free fall when gasoline once again becomes extremely high priced, scarce, or unavailable. Fuel-delivery disruptions in the Southeast provide a cautionary tale. The Southeast depends on two major pipelines to deliver petroleum products like gasoline and diesel from refineries on the Gulf Coast. But in September 2008, these pipelines were shut down when Hurricane Ike struck Texas and refineries across the region were forced to reduce or halt production. While U.S. oil reserves fell to their lowest level in more than forty years, Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Charlotte, and many other southeastern cities suffered intermittent fuel shortages for weeks. In most of these cities, few alternatives to private vehicles exist to move people and goods around, and outraged residents, businesses, and city officials were left stranded.
In addition to being at risk for energy-supply disruptions, either from natural disasters or from other threats, urban areas have another large-scale consideration: the need to reduce their greenhouse gas contributions while adapting to the already unavoidable effects of climate change. Climate change mitigation will be a serious challenge for all communities, but will be especially difficult and costly for car-dependent, sprawling suburbs and towns. Large freestanding houses and one-story office campuses with manicured lawns need far more energy and resources to heat, cool, clean, and water than smaller houses, row houses, apartments, and multistory offices landscaped with native plants.
In contrast, compact developments in cities and suburbs save energy beginning with physical proximities: Shared walls mean shared heating, cooling, and insulation. Accommodating growing populations and expanding businesses with repurposed existing buildings—rather than constructing new buildings—is another energy saver; rehabilitating and retrofitting areas that have already been built means that new streets, curbs, sidewalks, and utility lines often do not need to be installed. Compared to exurban sprawl, where all amenities have to be created with each new development, the infrastructure of denser preexisting urban environments saves energy and water and reduces waste because of shorter and more efficient electric, sewage, and water distribution lines.
Building for energy and climate resilience represents a safer investment, as evidenced during times of high instability in energy prices. From 2006 to 2008, a period of unprecedented exurban real estate collapse, many exurban communities experienced 30 to 50 percent year-to-year property value decreases. In contrast, property values in communities served by public transit, bicycling, and walking held up very well, and some of these areas actually increased in value during this tumultuous period. According to “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010”:
The lifestyle cost-of-living equation starts to swing away more dramatically from bigger houses on bigger lots at the suburban edge to greater convenience and efficiencies gained from infill housing closer to work. These homes may be more expensive on a price-per-pound basis, but reduced driving costs and lower heating/cooling bills provide offsets . . . near-in suburbs will do well especially if they link to business cores by mass transportation.
GETTING TO THE RESILIENT CITY
If the “Great Recession” that began in late 2007 taught us anything, it is that allowing the unrestrained sprawl of energy-inefficient communities and infrastructure is a bankrupt economic development strategy and constitutes a recipe for continued disaster on every level. Twentieth-century-style sprawl has destroyed valuable farmland, sensitive wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable drinking-water systems at great environmental, economic, and social cost. We can no longer manage and develop our communities with no regard for the limits of natural resources and ecological systems that provide our most basic needs.
What lessons emerge from metropolitan areas that have begun to plan for the future by building their resilience with economic, energy, and environmental uncertainty in mind?
Build and Rebuild Denser and Smarter
Most suburban and urban population densities need to be increased so that energy-efficient transportation choices like public transit, bicycling, and walking can flourish. Multimodal mobility cannot succeed at the densities found in most American suburban communities today. Increasing density doesn't have to mean building massive high-rises: Adding just a few stories on existing or new mixed-use buildings can double population density—and well-designed, increased density can also improve community quality of life and economic vitality. Resource-efficient building technologies, as rated and certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building program or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star rating, can be retrofitted onto existing building stock and mandated for all new construction.
Track and Measure Progress and Consider Standards
As communities increasingly come under the stresses of extreme weather induced by climate change—more frequent heat emergencies, smog alerts, floods, water shortages, and power outages—planning for resilience will be seen as an act of survival, not ingenuity or trendiness. But without implementation of large-scale resilience planning based on standards and measures, individual programs will have isolated impacts. Promising ways to measure the resilience of urban systems are being devised and refined, such as LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), which gives credit for mixed real estate uses and access to public transit for neighborhoods or developments. On the citywide level, sustainability standards and measures are emerging from organizations like ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability and the Global Footprint Network.
Focus on Water-Use Efficiency and Conservation
Our freshwater supply is one of our most vulnerable resources in the United States. Drought is no longer just a problem for southwestern desert cities—communities in places like Texas, Georgia, and even New Jersey have recently had to contend with water shortages. As precipitation patterns become less reliable and underground aquifers dry up, more communities will need to significantly reduce water demand through efficiency, conservation, restrictions, and “tiered pricing” (which means a basic amount of water is available at a lower price while above-average use becomes increasingly more expensive).
Global climate change is already known to be melting mountain snowpack much earlier than average in the spring, causing summer and fall water shortages. This has serious planning and design implications for many metro areas. For example, Lake Mead, which provides 90 percent of the water used by Las Vegas and is a major water source for Phoenix and other cities, has a projected 50 percent chance of drying up for water storage by 2021. The days are likely numbered for having one's own swimming pool and a large, lush, ornamental lawn in the desert Southwest, unless new developments and urban growth are planned with water conservation having the highest design priority.
Focus on Food
Urban areas need to think much bigger and plan systemically for significantly increased regional and local food production. Growing and processing more food for local consumption bolsters regional food security and provides jobs while generally reducing the energy, packaging, and storage needed to transport food to metro regions. In Asia and Latin America—even in big cities like Shanghai, China; Havana, Cuba; and Seoul, South Korea—there are thriving small farms interspersed within metro areas. Gardens—whether in backyards, community parks, or in and on top of buildings—may supplement people's diets with fresh local produce. Suburbs around Denver, for instance, have organized to preserve and cultivate unsold tract-home lots for community garden food production.
Think in Terms of Combined Risks
The costs of energy from systems overly or solely dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal-fired power plants, will be severely impacted by carbon-reduction regulations as well as the global decline of economically viable fossil-fuel resources. Petroleum supplies for transportation will also be at great risk of supply disruptions, whether natural (hurricanes) or man-made (terrorism, warfare, political acts).
Communities and regions should decide for themselves which initiatives reduce their economic risks and provide the greatest “bang for the buck.” As we learned with Wall Street's financial-derivatives crisis in 2007, we can't rely on government or conventional wisdom to identify all the big risks to our economy—and what we don't know can hurt us. Imagine if Las Vegas informed its residents and tourists on one 120-degree summer day that they would not be able to wash the dishes or take a shower, let alone golf, because there simply wasn't any water left. Whole regional economies will be threatened if we continue making decisions about how we use resources and energy without considering the risks of future energy and climate constraints.
Think in Terms of Interrelated Systems
If we think of our urban areas as living, breathing entities—each with a set of basic and more specialized requirements—we can better understand how to transform our communities from near-random configurations into dynamic, high-performance systems. In the same way that food, water, and oxygen make our own bodies run, we can think about the flows of resources that make urban systems run, and then consider what we might do to improve the “metabolism” of that system.
For example: More people living in southern California m
สำหรับภูมิภาครถไฟทั่วประเทศ ระบบขนส่งอาจดีกลายเป็น ความแตกต่างระหว่างเศรษฐกิจและเศรษฐกิจภูมิภาคทำงานในฤดูใบไม้ร่วงฟรีวุ่นวายเมื่อน้ำมันอีกสูงมากราคา หายาก หรือไม่ หยุดชะงักส่งน้ำมันในตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ให้เรื่อง cautionary ตะวันออกเฉียงใต้จะขึ้นอยู่กับท่อหลักสองจัดส่งผลิตภัณฑ์ปิโตรเลียมเช่นน้ำมันเบนซินและดีเซลจาก refineries ฝั่งอ่าว แต่ในเดือนกันยายน ท่อเหล่านี้ได้ปิดลงเมื่อพายุเฮอริเคน Ike หลงเท็กซัส และ refineries ภูมิภาคนี้ถูกบังคับให้ลด หรือหยุดการผลิต ในขณะที่น้ำมันสหรัฐ ตกกับระดับต่ำกว่าสี่สิบปี แอตแลนตา แนชวิลล์ Knoxville ชาร์ ลอตต์ และหลายเมืองตะวันออกเฉียงใต้อื่น ๆ รับความเดือดร้อนขาดแคลนน้ำมันเชื้อเพลิงที่ไม่ต่อเนื่องในสัปดาห์ ในที่สุดของเมืองเหล่านี้ ยานพาหนะส่วนตัวแทนไม่มีการย้ายคน และสินค้าสถาน และ ชาว outraged ธุรกิจ และเจ้าหน้าที่เมืองถูกควั่นซ้าย In addition to being at risk for energy-supply disruptions, either from natural disasters or from other threats, urban areas have another large-scale consideration: the need to reduce their greenhouse gas contributions while adapting to the already unavoidable effects of climate change. Climate change mitigation will be a serious challenge for all communities, but will be especially difficult and costly for car-dependent, sprawling suburbs and towns. Large freestanding houses and one-story office campuses with manicured lawns need far more energy and resources to heat, cool, clean, and water than smaller houses, row houses, apartments, and multistory offices landscaped with native plants. In contrast, compact developments in cities and suburbs save energy beginning with physical proximities: Shared walls mean shared heating, cooling, and insulation. Accommodating growing populations and expanding businesses with repurposed existing buildings—rather than constructing new buildings—is another energy saver; rehabilitating and retrofitting areas that have already been built means that new streets, curbs, sidewalks, and utility lines often do not need to be installed. Compared to exurban sprawl, where all amenities have to be created with each new development, the infrastructure of denser preexisting urban environments saves energy and water and reduces waste because of shorter and more efficient electric, sewage, and water distribution lines. อาคารสำหรับความยืดหยุ่นพลังงานและสภาพภูมิอากาศแทนการลงทุนที่ปลอดภัย เป็นเป็นหลักฐานในช่วงเวลาของความไม่แน่นอนสูงในราคาพลังงาน จากปี 2006 ถึง 2008 ระยะของ exurban เป็นประวัติการณ์อสังหาริมทรัพย์ยุบ หลาย exurban ชุมชนมีประสบการณ์ร้อยละ 30-50 ปีปีคุณสมบัติค่าลดลง ในทางตรงกันข้าม ค่าคุณสมบัติในชุมชนบริการขนส่งสาธารณะ เกาะ เดินขึ้นค่าดี และบางพื้นที่เหล่านี้จะเพิ่มขึ้นในค่าช่วงนี้ tumultuous ตาม "เกิดแนวโน้มอสังหาริมทรัพย์ปี 2553": สมการต้นทุนของชีวิตชีวิตเริ่มแกว่งออกจากบ้านใหญ่ในล็อตใหญ่ริมชานเมืองมากขึ้นอย่างมากเพื่อความสะดวกมากขึ้นและประสิทธิภาพที่ได้รับจากฉนวนที่อยู่อาศัยใกล้ที่ทำงาน บ้านเหล่านี้ แต่อาจจะแพงขึ้นตามราคาต่อปอนด์ ลดต้นทุนการขับขี่และสูตรร้อน/เย็นล่างให้ปรับค่า...ใกล้ในตัวเมืองจะไม่ดีโดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งถ้าพวกเขาเชื่อมโยงกับแกนธุรกิจ โดยระบบขนส่งมวลชนการเมืองความยืดหยุ่น If the “Great Recession” that began in late 2007 taught us anything, it is that allowing the unrestrained sprawl of energy-inefficient communities and infrastructure is a bankrupt economic development strategy and constitutes a recipe for continued disaster on every level. Twentieth-century-style sprawl has destroyed valuable farmland, sensitive wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable drinking-water systems at great environmental, economic, and social cost. We can no longer manage and develop our communities with no regard for the limits of natural resources and ecological systems that provide our most basic needs. What lessons emerge from metropolitan areas that have begun to plan for the future by building their resilience with economic, energy, and environmental uncertainty in mind? Build and Rebuild Denser and Smarter Most suburban and urban population densities need to be increased so that energy-efficient transportation choices like public transit, bicycling, and walking can flourish. Multimodal mobility cannot succeed at the densities found in most American suburban communities today. Increasing density doesn't have to mean building massive high-rises: Adding just a few stories on existing or new mixed-use buildings can double population density—and well-designed, increased density can also improve community quality of life and economic vitality. Resource-efficient building technologies, as rated and certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building program or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star rating, can be retrofitted onto existing building stock and mandated for all new construction. Track and Measure Progress and Consider Standards As communities increasingly come under the stresses of extreme weather induced by climate change—more frequent heat emergencies, smog alerts, floods, water shortages, and power outages—planning for resilience will be seen as an act of survival, not ingenuity or trendiness. But without implementation of large-scale resilience planning based on standards and measures, individual programs will have isolated impacts. Promising ways to measure the resilience of urban systems are being devised and refined, such as LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), which gives credit for mixed real estate uses and access to public transit for neighborhoods or developments. On the citywide level, sustainability standards and measures are emerging from organizations like ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability and the Global Footprint Network. Focus on Water-Use Efficiency and Conservation
Our freshwater supply is one of our most vulnerable resources in the United States. Drought is no longer just a problem for southwestern desert cities—communities in places like Texas, Georgia, and even New Jersey have recently had to contend with water shortages. As precipitation patterns become less reliable and underground aquifers dry up, more communities will need to significantly reduce water demand through efficiency, conservation, restrictions, and “tiered pricing” (which means a basic amount of water is available at a lower price while above-average use becomes increasingly more expensive).
Global climate change is already known to be melting mountain snowpack much earlier than average in the spring, causing summer and fall water shortages. This has serious planning and design implications for many metro areas. For example, Lake Mead, which provides 90 percent of the water used by Las Vegas and is a major water source for Phoenix and other cities, has a projected 50 percent chance of drying up for water storage by 2021. The days are likely numbered for having one's own swimming pool and a large, lush, ornamental lawn in the desert Southwest, unless new developments and urban growth are planned with water conservation having the highest design priority.
Focus on Food
Urban areas need to think much bigger and plan systemically for significantly increased regional and local food production. Growing and processing more food for local consumption bolsters regional food security and provides jobs while generally reducing the energy, packaging, and storage needed to transport food to metro regions. In Asia and Latin America—even in big cities like Shanghai, China; Havana, Cuba; and Seoul, South Korea—there are thriving small farms interspersed within metro areas. Gardens—whether in backyards, community parks, or in and on top of buildings—may supplement people's diets with fresh local produce. Suburbs around Denver, for instance, have organized to preserve and cultivate unsold tract-home lots for community garden food production.
Think in Terms of Combined Risks
The costs of energy from systems overly or solely dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal-fired power plants, will be severely impacted by carbon-reduction regulations as well as the global decline of economically viable fossil-fuel resources. Petroleum supplies for transportation will also be at great risk of supply disruptions, whether natural (hurricanes) or man-made (terrorism, warfare, political acts).
Communities and regions should decide for themselves which initiatives reduce their economic risks and provide the greatest “bang for the buck.” As we learned with Wall Street's financial-derivatives crisis in 2007, we can't rely on government or conventional wisdom to identify all the big risks to our economy—and what we don't know can hurt us. Imagine if Las Vegas informed its residents and tourists on one 120-degree summer day that they would not be able to wash the dishes or take a shower, let alone golf, because there simply wasn't any water left. Whole regional economies will be threatened if we continue making decisions about how we use resources and energy without considering the risks of future energy and climate constraints.
Think in Terms of Interrelated Systems
If we think of our urban areas as living, breathing entities—each with a set of basic and more specialized requirements—we can better understand how to transform our communities from near-random configurations into dynamic, high-performance systems. In the same way that food, water, and oxygen make our own bodies run, we can think about the flows of resources that make urban systems run, and then consider what we might do to improve the “metabolism” of that system.
For example: More people living in southern California m
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