Tonight the Post Carbon Institute (PCI), a California-based think tank addressing sustainability issues associated with climate change, peaking resources and community resiliency, kicks off a three-day gathering with its Fellows (of which I am one) in Berkeley.
The Institute was founded in 2003, largely around the issue of peaking oil and energy supplies. Author Richard Heinberg (The Party's Over, Peak Everything) was the group's first Senior Fellow. Heinberg has been now joined by 28 other Fellows, and this is their first gathering.
From an initial focus on peaking energy resources and their potential impacts, PCI now addresses multiple areas and issues including climate change, consumption/ waste, communities, economies, ecology, education, energy, food/ agriculture, government, health, social justice, population, water, transportation.
Eighteen of those who are coming to Berkeley (five will join in remotely) to address how our government, society, communities and different industry sectors can prepare better for the system-based or "wicked problems" that climate change, peaking energy supplies and global recession present.
Brian Schwartz (public health expert, professor Johns Hopkins University)
Bill Rees (community resilience expert, author, University British Columbia)
David Hughes (energy expert, geoscientist for Canadian Geological Survey)
Warren Karlenzig (urban expert, author, president Common Current)
Other participants that will join in remotely include authors Michael Shuman, Josh Farley, Bill McKibben and Richard Douthwaite, Transition Town movement originator Rob Hopkins; Johns Hopkins' Cindy Parker.
Look for my report next week on the outcome of this historic gathering.
Evidence that speculative auto-dependant sprawl was one of the major factors behind the Great Recession is emerging through real estate market studies of major US metro areas, from Washington DC to Southern California.
New research about the recession has also bolstered one of transit's
central premises -- that highway-driven sprawl is bad for a city's
economic health. Recent studies at the University of Utah, for example, concluded that foreclosure rates in the Washington area were much lower in counties served by the Metro rail system,
compared with the next ring of counties farther out, and that home
prices in Phoenix had also fallen in direct proportion to the distance
from downtown.
A new report I wrote for the Post Carbon Institute(link to pdf) includes the case of Victorville, California, a virtually 100 percent auto-dependent city of 107,000 that grew from 64,000 in 2000. Real estate prices started to crash in this Mojave desert community in 2006 when gas hit $2 a gallon. Victorville is now one of the foreclosure capitals of the nation, as home prices fell from an average of well over $325,000 in 2007 to under $125,000 in 2009.
Source: City-data.com (11/09)
The market was so decimated that large new homes, some might call them
McMansions, were demolished in Victorville (see photo at beginning of post) earlier this year to free
the city from liability resulting from possible vandalism, crime and
fire danger.
Similar imploding exurban real estate prices started the 2007-2009 national foreclosure crisis, with these toxic assets setting off the derivatives financial meltdown and, you know the rest...
Victorville is by no means an isolated example. The amount of suburban and exurban development that occurred in the 1990s and early 2000s when fuel prices hit their historic low prices (see graph below) has created a massive expanse of excess houses and infrastructure requiring untold resources to build and maintain.
Clearly it's time for the focus on "green cities" to expand outward to greening the suburbs and the exurbs, because that's where the majority of our nation's population resides. Though 80 percent of the nation lives in urban (developed) areas, only 20 percent of those "urbanites" live in big cities. About 60 percent of US population lives in metro area 'burbs of under 100,000.
During the last three years, outer-suburban or exurban areas lost far more value than real estate in urban or suburban areas served by public transit with walkable, bikeable and mixed-use zoning options as my report and others, such as Prof. Arthur C. Nelson's at the University of Utah, are demonstrating.
This is the first time in US history that sprawled low-density suburbs or exurbs have fallen faster in average value than city or inner-suburban areas; suddenly "Smart Growth" is more than a niche market or trend--it will be at the core of financially successful planning and development.
Greater density with non-auto mobility options is going to dominate development as long as we have climate change, volatile resource availability (particularly water) and high gas prices. In addition to economics, there are demographics. The nation's dramatically aging population consists of more single people, retired couples and empty-nesters who want apartments or condos from which they can walk, bike and ride buses or use subways and light rail.
The redesign of suburbs and exurbs will require some painful Victorville-type actions that may waste resources, such as tearing down certain neighborhoods or homes. There are other options, however. Ellen Dunham-Jones and June Williamson demonstrate design examples in their excellent 2009 book, Retrofitting Suburbia.
Not all future metro areas need to follow the hub-and-spoke format with central cities and their suburbs. Metro areas might consider, for instance, designing growth and transit corridors around multiple regional centers of economic activity, which was the aim of the Los Angeles area's Compass Blueprint.
On a more granular level, cul-de-sacs, which are impediments to non-automotive mobility, can be re-engineered to accommodate more direct walking and biking access.
The days of plowing productive agricultural areas under for suburban home tracts and strip malls may be coming to an end. A Denver suburban home developer is incorporating working agricultural land into unsold tract home land plots in numerous communities, in what is being billed as "Agriburbia."
Clearly, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emission reduction and resource conservation are becoming guiding factors for much more than regulatory and environmental compliance, they are beginning to dictate the very economies upon which our metro regions operate.
We must now rethink how to develop our communities so that sprawl does not re-emerge, and relegate it to history, as an oddity from the era when gas was cheap, the climate was forgiving and resources were seemingly endless.
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current,
a consultancy based in San Anselmo, California with international
projects on urban sustainability strategy and metrics. He is a Fellow at the
Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings.
The unchecked trend of US exurbanization was one of the major factors setting off the beginning of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, according to a new research paper published by the Post Carbon Institute investigating the relationship of sprawled, completely car-dependent communities to real estate risk as well as to climate change and ecosystems.
Besides the inherent threats to climate change and dwindling resources, exurban development during the past decades put the United States in a vulnerable economic position when steadily rising gas prices in 2004-2005 began their march toward $4-5 a gallon in mid 2008.
The research paper argues that many suburbs and most exurbs, which constitute the vast majority of urbanized areas in the United States, have been building up an infrastructure of complete auto dependence, which threatens the climate through multiple forms of inefficient energy, food and resource use.
Despite the emerging "green" urbanism trend, which can be found in a number of North American cities, unplanned exurban growth must be addressed and managed more efficiently, or the economy will face further severe national real estate shocks as oil prices rise again.
California's Senate Bill 375 is the first statewide anti-sprawl measure, and similar regulation and related regional planning processes will need to occur on a national basis to systemically reduce the combined risks of exurban development and financial speculation.
In April 2009--just when people thought things
couldn't get worse in San Bernardino County, California--bulldozers demolished
four perfectly good new houses and a dozen others still under construction in
Victorville, 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
The structures'
granite countertops and Jacuzzis were removed first. Then the walls came down
and the remains were unceremoniously scrapped. A woman named Candy Sweet came
by the site looking for wood and bartered a six-pack of cold Coronas for some
of the splintered two-by-fours. For a boomtown in one of the fastest-growing
counties in the United States, things were suddenly looking pretty bleak...
The recent decline of Victorville and other
"boomburbs" may well prove to be the last gasp of the United States'
decades-long suburban/exurban development frenzy. We will be absorbing or
trying to erase the unwanted surplus of this end-of-the-twentieth-century
building spree for years, if not decades. In the meantime, exurban communities
in general--and Victorville in particular--will face a daunting set of short term
and long term challenges as the 21st century shapes up to be very
different than the world they were built for...
Within the United States, existing metropolitan
areas can be retrofitted to take advantage of breakthroughs in sustainability
and efficiency technologies, as well as new financial incentives.
The American
Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009 has provided some funding for the
energy-efficient redesign of our buildings and our means of transportation. But
much more ambitious projects need to be undertaken to retrofit our communities
not only for energy efficiency, but to build their overall resilience.
Fortunately, a foundation for this work already
exists. Barely ten years ago, "green buildings," downtown streetcars, urban
farms, car-sharing companies, high-quality bicycle infrastructure and other
physical features now associated with urban sustainability were found only in a
handful of North American cities. Today, they are popping up everywhere.
Big
cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are actively trying to
"out-green" each other, while smaller cities like Boulder, Colorado, and
Alexandria, Virginia are rolling out their own localized sustainability solutions.
Some communities have taken early steps toward protecting their surrounding
agricultural lands, or "foodsheds," from well-established regional plans and
policies in Portland, Oregon to San Francisco's 2009 comprehensive local food
policy. Cities are starting to realize that they can't just "grow smarter"--they
have to fundamentally remake themselves to be resilient for the unprecedented
economic, social, and environmental challenges of the 21st century.
Some metro areas rethinking themselves for resilience
have simultaneously become home to "clean tech" centers with significantly high
job growth rates. Clean tech clusters are emerging in the San Francisco Bay
Area, Boston, and Austin, as well as in some less-expected locations; in
Toledo, Ohio, for instance, more than 4% of all jobs are now in research,
development and manufacturing for solar energy. Other key areas of future job
growth are in green building and landscaping, water conservation technologies,
low-carbon materials design and advanced transportation...
If the "Great Recession" of 2008-2009 taught us
anything, it was that allowing the unrestrained sprawl of energy-inefficient
communities and infrastructure is not a sustainable economic development
strategy; rather, it is a recipe for continued disaster on every level.
Twentieth century-style sprawl has destroyed valuable farmland, sensitive
wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable natural water supply systems at great environmental,
economic, and social cost. We can no longer manage and develop our communities
with no regard for the 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 re-build denser and smarter. Suburban and urban population
densities need to increase so that energy-efficient transportation choices
like public transit, bicycling and walking can flourish. Multi-modal
mobility cannot succeed at the densities found in most American suburban
and urban communities today. Increasing density doesn't have to mean
building massive high-rises: adding just a few more 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 certified by the US
Green Building Council's Leadership in Environment and Energy (LEED) or
the US EPA's Energy Star rating, can be retrofitted for existing building
stock and mandated for all new construction.
Focus
on food. Gardens
(whether in backyards, community parks, or in and on top of buildings) may
supplement people's diets with fresh local produce--but urban areas need to
think big and plan systemically for significantly increased food
production. In many Asian cities and towns--even big cities like Seoul,
South Korea, the size of New York--there are thriving small farms
interspersed within metro areas. Growing and processing more food for
local consumption bolsters regional food security and provides jobs while
reducing the energy, packaging and storage needed to transport food to
metro regions.
Focus
on water. Our
freshwater supply is one of our the most vulnerable resources in the
United States. Water vulnerability 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 and mountain snowpack dry
up, more and more communities will need to significantly reduce water
demand through conservation, restrictions and "tiered pricing."
Think
in terms of 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 random configurations into dynamic, high-performance
systems of resilience. The "metabolism" of urban systems depends largely on
how energy, water, food, materials, labor and knowledge are used (and
reused, where possible), or metabolized. From these ingredients and
processes come products, services, and--if the system is efficient--minimal
waste and pollution...
How do we put the pieces together to make our cities and metro areas stronger than they were before climate change, energy volatility and the Great Recession?
(See "*answer" at end of this post...)
That's what I'll be discussing tomorrow (Tuesday) night on a panel, "Urban Resilience in Post-Carbon World," in Vancouver with Bill Rees, of Ecological Footprint fame, and Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty.
The panel, sponsored by the Post Carbon Institute, will be open to the public and is part of a larger event on urban resilience bringing together local government leaders from Canada and the United States, as well as academics and practitioners in urban sustainability--er, resiliency--management.
Vancouver has been viewed for a decade as a success story in sustainable planning and programs. From the city's emphasis on increased downtown density, bikability and green buildings, including its sponsorship of a "21 places for the 21st century" contest, to a city farmer program for exchanging surplus fruit, Vancouver is on the vanguard of urban resiliency innovation. It also is one of Canada's most diverse cities, home to significant numbers of Asians from many countries, including India, as well as indigenous North Americans.
The rich offerings of the Resilient Cities event demonstrates that Vancouver is thinking ahead once more. Besides its Mayor Gregor Robertson, minions of regional and local government, non-governmental and business leaders will be putting on events, including:
The Vancouver Design Nerds and Open Space Network will be facilitating an urban agriculture ideas jam while another group of food system experts and producers will examine "Planning Metro Vancouver as if Food Matters."
A local university campus (BCIT Burnaby Campus) will be having a design charette, led by Ecocities founder Richard Register, to reduce its ecological footprint by a factor of four.
City government and groups including TransFair Canada will examine how to invigorate local economic development through fair trade and sustainable purchasing.
The city's "Greenest City Action Team" including the manager of the City of Vancouver Sustainability Group will share advice on engaging people in change.
BC hydro will lead an interactive session on sustainable community energy.
Provincial official will examine convening action throughout British Columbia (Vancouver's province) that achieves settlement in balance with ecology.
Real estate experts including David Suzuki Foundation author Nicholas Heap will explain how climate change could impact the region's real estate.
Other cities, from New York City, with former Sustainable South Bronx's Majora Carter, (a Fellow at Post Carbon Institute along with Bill Rees and myself) to Berkeley, California, will have case studies presented. AAt in
Key to a successful event will be how well presenters and activities engage systems approaches for resilient communities, rather than just repackaging siloed sustainability chestnuts under a new label.
Besides regional government organization Metro Vancouver's hosting of a session on "The Politics of Decision-Making for Sustainability," Vancouver is making attempts at coordinating with Seattle and Portland on how to make the Cascadia region a more interconnected and better managed bioregional market. Cascadia forces helped push Amtrak to connect Portland and Vancouver for the first time without border fees, for instance.
Portland Mayor Sam Adams will be at the event with a contingent from that Oregon city, as will Jim Diers, author of Neighbor Power: Building Community the Seattle Way.
* The easy answer to my opening question, by the way, includes providing better regional
collaboration, particularly in the area of land use, planning and
transportation.
Unfettered growth in car-dependent sprawled communities proved during the past few years to be the biggest economic risk factor in real estate, endangering the whole US economy. Exurban Sun Belt homes and entire neighborhoods went from being hot properties to foreclosed or even largely abandoned, as rising gas price rises changed speculative economics from 2006-2009.
Which means that because of climate change, the issue of how to control and rethink sprawl on the regulatory and policy level should become a leading order of business in metro areas, states, nations and the world.
The unplanned sprawl that already exists will need to be re-engineered or "undone," which means that the alternatives provided by the Vancouvers and Portlands--transit-oriented development, multi-model mobility (including walking and biking), regional energy and food production--will need to be applied at regional levels throughout North America.
The suburbs and exurbs are ground zero for change, particularly in the United States, where though most people live in urban areas (79% in 2000), they do not live in big cities. Only a quarter of US residents live in cities above 100,000 in population, so no matter how green cities become, we must think in terms of metros and their smaller cities if we really want to prepare for the future.
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active urban sustainability consultancy. He is author of How Green is Your City? The SustainLane US City Rankings and co-author of a forthcoming book from the Post Carbon Institute on urban and societal resiliency
Warren Karlenzig
Common Current founder and president, has
worked with the federal government; the nation of South Korea ("New
Cities Green Metrics"); The European Union ("Green and Connected Cities
Initiative"); the State of California ("Comprehensive Recycling
Communities" and "Sustainable Community Plans"); major cities; and the
world's largest corporations developing policy, strategy, financing and
critical operational capacities for 20 years. Read more here.
