City dwellers leave small carbon footprint
City dwellers leave less of a carbon footprint than those who live in leafy suburbs
Cities have an old and deserved reputation for being dirty -- the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley imagined hell was like a city, "populous and smoky."
But a new study by the Center for Neighborhood Technology found that while cities produce more greenhouse gases per acre than suburban and rural areas, people who live in cities produce less.
(Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
In other words, if you live in a leafy exurb, it's harder to be green.
The CNT looked at carbon dioxide emissions from household vehicles in 55 metropolitan areas around the U.S.
Carbon dioxide is a so-called "greenhouse gas" that has been associated with global warming. When measured on a per household basis, the study found that the transportation-related emissions of people living in cities and compact neighborhoods can be nearly 70 percent less than those living in suburbs. Transportation accounts for 28 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gases.
"Cities are more location-efficient, meaning key destinations are closer to where people live and work," said CNT President Scott Bernstein. "They require less time, money, fuel and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel needs. People can walk, bike, car-share, take public transit."
Looking at particular Chicago neighborhoods, the study found that Pilsen, the Irving Park/Sheridan area and South Shore had some of the lowest household emission counts -- 3 or less metric tons of carbon dioxide per household per year. Beverly scored on the high side for city neighborhoods, at 7.2 tons.
Communities with high emission outputs include west suburban Naperville, with 8.3 tons per household per year, south suburban Flossmoor with 9 tons, far northwest suburban Algonquin with 10.2 tons, Monee/Peotone in Will County with 10.4 tons and Yorkville in Kendall County with 11.7 tons.
In the middle were inner ring suburbs like Berwyn at 6.5 and Oak Park at 6.6.
Peter Haas, CNT's chief research scientist, said that people who want to lower their carbon footprint may want to choose an urban area, or at least a suburb with good transit and a downtown in walking distance. The American Public Transportation Association figures that a Chicagoan can save $11,169 a year by taking public transit instead of driving.
Greg and Alia Smith wanted a home with a yard but couldn't afford a single-family home in the city. So they chose Oak Park over other suburbs, in large part because of its public transit.
Oak Park is connected to their jobs in downtown Chicago through both the Metra and the CTA. They plan to ride bikes a couple of times a week. Along with his job as an attorney, Greg Smith runs the bike networking site Velospace.org.
The Smiths don't own a car -- using I-Go car sharing when they need to make a big grocery trip.
"We've gotten used to not having to pay for gas, for car insurance -- for us to change that would be a big change to our monthly budget," said Alia Smith, 26.
Sheila Adams, 46, has liked living in Andersonville for the past 10 years because she can walk to neighborhood stores and take public transit to work.
"Everything's in a four-block radius," said Adams. She owns a car, but she doesn't use it much. "You can keep it 15 years because you don't drive it that often," she said.
Adams said if gas were taxed at a level that kept it around $4 or $5 a gallon, more people would want to live in less car-centric places. "You'll see fewer people choosing their homes based on square footage and price," Adams said. Another factor people should consider is their time, Adams said.
"I joke with my co-workers [from the suburbs] that they're still on the train when I'm already sitting on my deck having a glass of wine," Adams said.
The CNT study is an outgrowth of CNT's "Housing + Transportation Affordability Index," started a year ago. Haas said the new study looked at factors like where households are located and the availability of transit.
To see metropolitan area emission maps produced by CNT, go to www.cnt.org.
