Joel Kotkin is a noted scholar whose general line of thinking is counter to what loosely might be called the New Urbanism. As such he is an ideological soulmate of the WSJ editorial board.
The notion that government would “force” people to do something is, of course, very near and dear to the the board’s heart. But it goes even beyond that very reasonable ideological stand. And this is a pattern… they seem to feel a need to not just take their justifiable position, but to also ostensibly prove that the very thing that is being encouraged is in fact bad.
Excerpts are from Kotkin’s WSJ op-ed July 19, 2008, Jerry Brown’s War on California Suburbs (emphasis added):
“(CA attorney General) Mr. Brown is taking aim at the suburbs, concerned about the alleged environmental damage they cause”
“Recent studies in Australia have shown that multistoried housing generates higher carbon emissions than either townhomes or single-family residences because of the energy consumed by common areas, elevators and parking structures, as well as the lack of tree cover”.
I don’t know how to find these “recent studies in Australia”, as he does not provide any references either in WSJ print piece, or his on blog which ran the piece in its entirety.
I don’t know what to say about the parking structures — other than it should be obvious that private automobiles exact high costs in often un-obvious ways.
The elevator comment is completely ridiculous. High rise electric elevators are extremely efficient, they are designed so the weight of the elevator car is in balance, and even utilize regenerative braking. The amount of electricity to move a person is infinitesimally small. What is more relevant is what happens after you step off the elevator, as opposed to after the suburbanite steps into their garage. The suburbanite’s next leg of journey is nearly certainly to be a car trip. The urbanite has choices.
The linchpin of his argument is this “The problem is, that’s not what Californians want”. My fundamental complaint is that people can’t make good choices when they are not paying the full costs of their choices (pollution, environmental damage, infrastructure, etc.). Private automobilization is the prime offender and its use is inextricably linked to suburbanization.
In a recent op-ed published in LA Times (and reprinted in my paper, the AZ Republic) a couple of weeks ago, Suburbia’s not dead yet : Some believe high gas prices will force a migration
back to cities. Don’t bet on it.
To read Jerry Brown’s response to Mr. Kotkin’s article. Use this link. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121738189085995477.html
I’d have a very hard time believing that high rise buildings are less efficient than single family buildings.
Yes you expend extra indoor space on hallways and elevators but that’s around 25% of the building space and is often kept at a temperature much closer to the temperature outdoors.
You do drop tree cover, which is a serious help on some homes (the ones which are lucky to still have that carefully planted tree tanding).
(Consider my use of “heat” to mean heat transfer. Direction isn’t particularly important).
You get quite a few gains though: Your only losing heat to the outside on two sides instead of 4. On all but the top floor you don’t have to pay the costs of heating the roof.
If you own your apartment that’s where most of it stops.
If you don’t you have extra costs because land lords are cheap and don’t give a rip about efficiency. You won’t find on demand water heaters, efficient refrigerators, or lots of insulation in most apartments.
However, you’ll still find lower utility bills. It’s difficult to find a house which will get as low of utility bills as my apartment. We found one once: It was 25% smaller, had a heat pump, and was previously occupied by folks who were obviously frugal.
So I don’t know where this study is coming from. Here in the midwest of the US an apartment works out to be more efficient with respect to utility bills. It’s obviously more space efficient.
The major suck factor on apartments is the lack of green space to grow things. This isn’t at all unsolvable but it seems to be a feature that no apartment dweller wants.
High rises can have some utility advantages they rarely end up with, and those will come as the market dictates them (as energy prices rise):
Geothermal makes sense for big buildings. For your house it’s a lot of expensive work.
Solar makes more sense for the landlord because he’ll own the building long enough to get his investment back (I’m actually shocked I don’t see solar panels on every apartment and an electric bill split between the landlord and the electric provider).
I’m less sure about this, but I’m guessing that the huge parking lots on apartments give a good shot at an effective mid sized wind mill (the return on investment is quicker here than solar).
There are also financial advantages: We wouldn’t have so much of our economy wrapped up in our shelter if we didn’t all require a single family home ;). US resources are finite and we can only invest so much. If you take it away from housing it’s going to go somewhere else.