I agree with most of what Bill has said. I live in a well-designed city (Minneapolis), with good public transit, decent accommodations for bicycle traffic, public parks, scattered commercial zones (so you don't have to drive to a mall or downtown to find everything), and the streets in a sensible grid. I use my car only when I need to haul more than I can reasonably carry on my bike, to get around in bad weather when public transit won't quite suffice, or to travel outside the city. You couldn't pay me enough to get me to live in the suburbs around here, because I'd have to give a lot of that up.
I think Paul's comparisons are slanted because Hong Kong and Singapore came up earlier in the thread, so he was comparing U.S. living spaces with living spaces in these cities. I think the point of the comparison was to show how much less floor space an American homeowner would have to accept to live like someone in a very dense city. But the figure for new homes in 2007 is definitely slanted toward the high end for America, since new homes keep getting bigger and bigger (compare with the figure for 1950), and 2007 was the peak of the housing boom. Overall, I agree with Bill that we can really make substantial reductions in our environmental impact while maintaining a high quality of life. I just meant to say that I am uncertain whether those reductions would be sufficient, and pessimistic that enough people would be willing to make the appropriate changes in any case. Consider how very popular Priuses were for a couple months last summer, when gas went over three bucks a gallon; dealers around here couldn't keep them in stock. Once gas prices were back down, the Priuses were just sitting on the lots, and SUV sales went up a bit. This is not the behavior of a species capable of making sacrifices to save itself from impending ecological disaster. Jim Crants On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:55 AM, William Silvert <[email protected]> wrote: > Not all of the changes that Paul describes are negative. If you live in a > well-designed city you don't need a car, while if you live in suburbia or > beyond it is an absolute necessity. Apartments are indeed smaller than > suburban homes, and are sadly deficient in places to store lawnmowers and > similar items. Apartments are so small that there is no room for a septic > tank. > > By the way, how do the sizes of apartments in Hong Kong compare with the > sizes of rural homes in China? Or US apartments with US homes? I find Paul's > comparisons pretty slanted. > > Certainly changing one's lifestyle can involve some pretty major changes, > some positive, some negative. There are a lot of trade-offs, even if you > stay in the same kind of place - for example, Americans seem to like to live > in uniformally residential developments with zoning law enforcement, so if > you want to go to a café you have to drive. Europe and other areas have much > more lax zoning laws, so on one hand your neighbour might be running a > business from her home, while on the other there is a nice café across the > street. > > In general it seems that city dwellers have a small footprint than country > residents, at least within the same region, but of course their footprint is > not zero. I could go on, but much of what I would say was in my early post > but not quoted by Paul. > > Bill Silvert > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Cherubini" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 8:47 AM > Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] What's wrong with growth, (was: ESA position on > sustainable growth) > > > William Silvert wrote: >> >> a stable population with a better quality of life does not >>> necessarily mean more resources are needed. >>> >> >> some places have achieved high levels of economic >>> growth without comparable resource consumption >>> by taking advantage of good education and financial innovation, >>> notably Hong Kong and Singapore. >>> >> >> Bill, could you elaborate more specifically about what you >> mean by a "better quality of life"? >> >> In Hong Kong the average size of a home is 450 square feet >> (2500 square feet was the average size of a new home in >> the USA in 2007 and 984 square feet was the average size >> in 1950). So climbing into one's bed from the doorway is a >> common occurrence for Hong Kongers. >> http://www.tuition.com.hk/hong_kong.htm >> >> And in 1999, there were only 59 cars per 1000 people >> in Hong Kong (vs 474 per 1000 in the USA) >> http://tinyurl.com/np36aa >> >> Likewise in Singapore 90 percent of the population lives in >> high-rise public housing and there are only 101 cars per >> 1000 people: http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=1908 >> >> Both Hong Kong and Singapore have little arable land and few >> natural resources, so they must import most of their food plus >> raw materials such as wood and petroleum. So it appears to >> me the underlying reasons why the people of Hong Kong and >> Singapore are achieving high levels of economic growth >> without comparable resource consumption is because they: >> >> a) don't have to consume land to grow food crops >> >> b) don't have to consume forests to obtain their building materials >> and paper products >> >> c) don't have to drill for oil or natural gas to obtain >> the petroleum the country uses to manufacture the >> products they export (e.g. electronics). >> >> d) are willing to live in extremely small homes and forsake the >> routine use of automobiles. >> >> What bothers me about the push for a steady state economy >> is that it's advocates claim no major lifestyle changes need to >> be made. So all it really appears to accomplish is to slightly >> slow down the the ongoing unsustainable rate of depletion >> of land, air and water resources. Worse, I feel it distracts the >> public in the USA, Canada, etc., from have to face the reality >> that serious sacrifices (in terms of home size, auto size and >> use, family size, etc.,) such as those the people of Hong Kong >> and Singapore are already making would be necessary to >> even start to come close to achieving a sustainable resource >> consumption rate. >> >> Paul Cherubini >> El Dorado, Calif. >> >> -- James Crants, PhD Scientist, University of Minnesota Agronomy and Plant Genetics Cell: (734) 474-7478
