New Research Finds Urban Form Plays Little Role in
Sustainability One need not look far to find a passionate
argument that the compact city is the green city. Having more
people in a smaller area results in less energy use for
transportation purposes, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and
greater efficiencies in the use of various resources. Cramming
more people into a smaller space makes our cities more
sustainable. Or does it? New research published in the spring
issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association finds
that – unlike today's dominant narrative of the green city –
urban form may actually have very little impact on energy use
and other measures of sustainability. Researchers from the
universities of Cambridge, Newcastle, and Leeds looked at three
English metropolitan areas of various sizes and ran them through
computer models that imposed three different urban forms over
the course of 30 years. Each area was modeled as a hyper-dense
city with tight restrictions on land use, an urban growt