Then I stumbled onto Green Metropolis, by David Owen. On the cover is a tree formed from the iconic rainbow of subway lines, familiar to anyone who has travelled in New York City, Washington D.C., or in other countries with advanced fixed rail transit systems like Japan. It's a friendly, happy picture for a transit fan like me who has longed for our long overdue light rail system to be completed in Seattle. Little did I know that this lovely cover concealed a story that would threaten my comforting illusions of world-saving and challenge me to shift my perspective to an even larger systemic picture. If this book were written by Malcolm Gladwell, it would probably have been titled, "Counterintuitive: How Green Measures and Carpool Lanes Hurt The Planet." You've been warned.
Quick links:
Chapter 1: More Like Manhattan
Chapter 2: Liquid Civilization
Chapter 3: There and Back
Chapter 4: The Great Outdoors
Chapter 5: Embodied Efficiency
Chapter 6: The Shape of Things to Come
My conclusion
Main concepts:
- Urban density is the best way, per capita, to limit human environmental damage.
- Cars and sprawl are linked in a vicious cycle that creates more demand for resources.
- Adding "green technology" to buildings and cars is a highly overrated bandage.
- Our perceptions are skewed in comparing damage and benefit and in valuing optimization.
- Traffic improvements to promote better traffic flow are bad.
- The greenest corporate "campuses" are in no way as sustainable as college campuses.
The first chapter serves as an approachable warmup to the brainbending paradigm challenges you'll encounter throughout this book. The author sets the stage for the rest of the book, describing Manhattan both from an historical developmental perspective and by a modern evaluation of environmental impact. The main idea is that the geographical and aesthetic limitations at the time of the area's founding have translated into a situation where city density is valued and where people have developed logical behaviors in response: they walk to most destinations, using the subway where needed to access distant locations. It is uncomfortable and inconvenient to drive around, and because it is unnecessary due to the high density of stores, social venues, and employment locations around people's living areas, most people in the city don't bother with driving, or even owning, a car. The chapter closes with the author's three main points, reminiscent of Michael Pollan's food guidance ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."):
- Live Closer.
- Live Smaller.
- Drive Less.
The second chapter is much less friendly. Titled, "Liquid Civilization," it painted such a bleak picture of our future relationship with fossil fuels that I had to stop reading for a few weeks because it brought me to the edge of despair. Not only is Peak Oil either here or nearly here, but modern civilization CANNOT stop using it because there is simply no other way to leverage the massive amount of energy we need to sustain our activities. This was the most distressing part of the book for me because even though I personally go as far as a modern American could reasonably be expected to go while maintaining an involved lifestyle through the Internet, even my activities require an immense amount of energy that necessitates the use of fossil fuels.
This chapter was the most painful but most impactful piece of reading I have seen in years because of its humbling and eye-opening brutal honesty. Everyone should read it while keeping a kitten or puppy within reach to soothe one's nerves afterwards.
After that part, the rest of the book was much easier because it reinforced my growing dislike of suburban culture and expansion.
Chapter 3,"There and Back," discusses how suburban expansion directly followed the development of the automobile, a symbol of freedom and independence championed by Henry Ford. The excellent systemic analysis continues in this chapter as we see a series of rational cost-benefit choices made by people contributing to the problems we see today. A key concept here is that cars serve a viral function by promoting sprawl which then promotes more car usage. This vicious cycle traps many of us, and escape is impossible until we recognize how this cycle works.
Additionally, Owen critiques the focus on efficiency in traffic planning systems that counterintuitively makes the sprawl problem worse by improving driving conditions rather than letting them devolve into misery. As an example, he explains how HOV and toll lanes exacerbate the long-term traffic volume because it improves the flow of traffic for everyone as a "reward" for only modest behavioral changes (which aren't very impactful anyway). Traffic calming measures, like speed bumps, and Old World examples of urban planning that narrow streets with parking and wider sidewalks are also discussed for their utility in reducing the number of drivers.
Another idea he confronts is the seductive call of cute cars - mini-cars, high-efficiency hybrids, stackable vehicles - all the models of automobiles that are being designed to woo non-drivers (like me) into driving. These are also bad because they are targeted at city dwellers who don't own a car by mitigating common complaints about them. I admit to feeling tempted, in a hypothetical sense, to consider one of these "smart cars" on occasion, which shows the power of these creative geniuses in their design. Owen does acknowledge that if a suburban-living, SUV/Hummer-driving owner swapped to one of these, there would be a small improvement in environmental impact, but it would still be nowhere as good as if that person just moved to the city and stopped driving altogether.
At least I feel more righteous in my refusal to get a driver's license to prevent myself from a lapse of judgment one of these days.
Chapter 4, "The Great Outdoors," examines how our illusions about living and working in pastoral settings actually destroys the very thing we claim to value. E. O. Wilson's concept of "Biophilia" springs to mind as a reason for this irrational desire to be "closer to nature." It's a bittersweet chapter because most of us harbor the idealistic dream of looking out the window to see old growth forest and deer frolicking and babbling natural brooks, and the cold reality of this chapter crushes it into concrete wastelands and spiraling cul de sac housing developments. Owen also points out with brutal realism the fact that on average, suburban dwellers spend as little time as possible in their spacious yards and walking through green spaces; mostly their time outside is spent taking out the trash, walking the dog, or taking care of that lawn that serves only an ornamental function.
The following quote (pg. 199, hardcover ed.) is haunting in its truth and sadness:
"We all tend to think of ourselves as the last unsinning inhabitants of whatever place we live in. We don't usually recognize ourselves as participants in its destruction."
But wait! The destruction and pillaging of the environment doesn't stop there! "Embodied Efficiency," Chapter 5, critiques the rat's maze of standards we have created to allow us to build more while retaining a sense of self-righteous sustainability. "You can't save if you don't spend," and you can't be sustainable if you don't build, according to these standards. For example, a new development out in the countryside that uses efficient watering systems for their landscaping is eligible for credits through LEED. But a building in the middle of a city that has no landscaping, arguably a less wasteful site overall, is not eligible for landscaping-related efficiency credits. At this point in the book, it's a truism that not building out in pristine wilderness is always going to be better than building there, not just for the creation of new energy and resource sinks, but for the systemic impact in aggravating the sprawl and commute problem.
The last chapter, "The Shape of Things to Come," departs from the rest of the book's theme to look at societies outside the United States. Owen compares Chinese slums to Dubai's city in the desert and describes how China's urban areas demonstrate factors friendly to urban density while Dubai's sprawl beats even Las Vegas for its environmental damages.
Although individual concepts in this book - "urban density good, sprawl bad" - were familiar to me already, the sharp presentation and argumentation of counterintuitive ideas critiquing the growing common wisdom about urban planning, traffic management, and "green" incentives struck me in a disconcertingly powerful way. I consider myself well-informed on sustainability issues, but realized that I let myself get lulled into a false sense of security along with everyone else that optimization in general is a good thing. This discomfort is very good, and I highly recommend that anyone truly interested in sustainability and environmental issues read this book as a check on "green complacency." Here's a complimentary box of tissues made from 100% post-consumer content to help you through the read.
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