Greening the suburbs
Today’s New York Times has an interesting article on the challenge of greening America’s suburbs.
The core question the article asks – through the proxy of “many environmentalists” – is whether car-dependent suburbs can be green, even if residents want to reduce carbon emissions and live sustainably. The article doesn’t imply an answer – it seems content with posing the question, and doesn’t provide much basis for evaluating how green is green enough.
But it’s worth thinking through what changes it would take to make suburban living sustainable. My list includes:
- rainwater capture to restore natural patterns of runoff;
- distributed generation of electricity from renewable sources;
- greater energy and water use efficiency within the home;
- addition of neighborhood bike and pedestrian routes, where possible;
- encouragement of mixed land use, where possible;
- reduction in application of pesticides and fertilizers to lawns and landscaping.
That’s probably an incomplete list, but it’s a start. It’s not clear to me what kind of density is necessary to support various commercial land uses – a grocery store, for example. That gets to the basic flaw of the car-centric suburb: it’s just energy inefficient, any way you cut it.
What would you put on your ‘greening the suburbs’ list?
Coffee is the world's second largest commodity behind only oil. Most coffee is ground and brewed using electricity. Think of the savings in electricity and water if instead of brewing, coffee was consumed by chewing whole beans. No more coffee stains either.