Green House Gas Emissions along the Rural to Urban Transect
Clint Andrews, Bloustein School of Planning and Policy
Wednesday Sept. 10, 2008 4:00 PM
The lecture will be in Cook-Douglass Lecture Hall Room 110
This talk will show how land use relates to greenhouse gas emissions. It links settlement patterns to greenhouse gas emissions via landscape impacts (deforestation, carbon sequestration by soils and plants, urban heat island), infrastructure impacts (transportation-related emissions,
waste management-related emissions, electric transmission and distribution losses), and buildings (residential, commercial). Exploratory case studies of New Jersey municipalities lying along a gradient of increasing population density suggest that per-capita carbon dioxide emissions vary widely, following an inverted “U” shape, with post-war suburbs riding the pinnacle. Reflecting their central regional roles, municipalities with good jobs-to-housing ratios have higher per-capita emissions because they host both residential and commercial buildings. Buildings typically contribute more emissions than personal transportation. Vehicle-miles traveled per capita shrink most dramatically at very high population densities and where transit options exist. Changing land-use patterns is a political challenge because localism and outdated zoning ordinances subvert regional solutions. Technical fixes, especially green buildings, must be part of the solution.
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