June 30th, 2009 · No Comments

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

City centers are often portrayed as grimy, polluted places. And they can be grimy, polluted places – the daily destination for thousands of carbon-emitting commuters and home to many smokestack industries.

Just don’t blame the people living there. Households closer to the urban action are, on average, far less polluting, according to research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The reason is not hard to fathom: People living in more densely developed areas drive less and are more likely to take public transportation.

“Cities are more location efficient – meaning key destinations are closer to where people live and work,” said Scott Bernstein, president of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, in a statement explaining the center’s research.

Conversely, people living in the suburbs drive farther to services, including often commuting to their workplace (in the city or another burb), which makes them less “location efficient” — and more polluting.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology, a 30-year-old non-profit based in Chicago and focused on urban living, has put together a collection of nifty maps where you can see the effects of this phenomenon in which city dwellers emit fewer greenhouse gases than suburbanites. The maps are the graphic expression of the center’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which suggests that families could lower their carbon emissions by living closer to the urban center, though perhaps not too close, where the real estate prices kick into hyper-drive.

The index is calculated by using regional median incomes and stacking them against the costs of housing and transportation to give “the true cost” of living in a certain place. (To see more on the methodology, click here.)

See an example of the H+T Index on the map above of the LA area, which shows the highest carbon dioxide pollution per household comes from outlying areas (shown in red) compared with the lower GHG households (shown in yellow) closer to the city center.

It makes sense, urban dwellers are closer to restaurants, workplaces and an array of services, as well as public transportation, so they’re not weighed down by transportation costs nor are they spewing much exhaust.

They’re also may be saving far more money than people may realize, says CNT president Scott Bernstein.

The group’s research has found that city dwellers may save 15 to 20 percent of their income moving to a closer-in location compared with their counterparts in the suburbs. With the costs of buying, insuring and fueling a car running around $5,100 a year in major cities, jettisoning a vehicle could make a big difference to a financially stressed family.

“If you’re at the edge, saving through conservation this way is a better proposition than increasing your income by X amount,” Bernstein said.

There also are convenience and accessibility features to living in an urban environment that can make sense to a family of any income, he continued. The point of the index is to illustrate for people that they have a choice of where to live and that the savings on transportation can make urban living a value proposition.

“This is evidence based. It’s not just a philosophy,” said Bernstein, who oversaw the review of all U.S. major metropolitan areas.

As for that gritty, grimy image of urban centers, Bernstein says that air pollution can be just as bad in certain outlying regions, when air patterns take industrial or auto emissions there. Suburban subdivisions also are frequently built near expressways, which degrades the quality of the air, he said.

Air pollution does present barriers to moving to certain urban locales, he conceded, but moving to a more accessible region doesn’t necessarily mean moving “downtown” so much as it means “urbanizing more places.”

The H + T index does not analyze other quality of life issues. It does not, for instance, assess the psychological value of being closer to urban amenities, nor does it weigh the value of better-rated public schools in suburban locations. Those are matters for a different matrix dealing with overall quality of life issues. The H+T Index is simply calculated to show the transportation cost of living in a certain location.

In the course of looking at the relative transportation costs, though, the Center for Neighborhood Technology did review carbon dioxide emissions related to vehicle travel in 55 metro areas in the United States. Overall, the researchers found that the transportation-related emissions of city folk were about 70 percent less than of those living in suburbs.

In areas where sprawl is extensive, and comes with sparse public transit, transportation costs can gobble up to 28 percent of the area household median income, the center researchers noted.

“If you’re deciding where to live, consider moving to an urban area. You’ll help fight global warming by emitting less CO2. And you’re likely to drive less, so you’ll spend less on transportation, saving up to $5,000 annually,” Bernstein said.

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