How could American cities become environmentally sustainable?

11 comments

1. Allow more construction. Building up is far more efficient than sprawl in basically every way

   But right now it’s illegal in almost every city

2. Cities already are pretty sustainable. It’s the suburbs that are really bad environmentally speaking.

   More mid-density housing and more PT/bike infrastructure is great, but the cities aren’t really the problem.

3. I guess I’m not sure what the definition of “environmentally sustainable” is.

   Carbon neutral? That’s just a matter of time as alternative power sources become more accessible.

   Zero plastic waste? That ship has likely sailed short of some major breakthroughs in biodegradable materials manufacturing.

   Simply lower energy consumption? The general answer is higher density.

   The real answer is getting rid of suburbs. But that’s not going to happen.

4. If by cities you mean wider metropolitan areas, then I’d say by investing heavily in multimodal transportation and multimodal transportation infrastructure. Even if no one is using it at first, make sure the dollars you’re spending towards roads, through bonding for paving or in expending a gas tax or whatever, are also being distributed to buffered bike lane design and installation, as well as safe sidewalks. Build bus shelters. Put more buses on the road. Improve ease of access to buses through bus card systems that can be refilled online, like an Oyster card. Put large roads on road diets.

   Those are the direct support, indirect support could include: abolishing parking minimums, requiring bike support infrastructure in parking lots, building raised crosswalks at busy intersections, increasing traffic enforcement, incenting development near heavily driven roads so that it’s easier to deploy bus lines in those areas and multimodal infrastructure built in those areas reaches more future population.

   That’s a start. Make driving slightly harder and make not-driving easier and more accessible.

5. What does that mean? Building them out of wood?

   What is “unsustainable” about American cities?

6. Rezone, and better design of energy-dense renewables (primarily nuclear and hydroelectric)

7. if we must insist on suburbs existing, expand public transit options from the suburbs into the cities and highly incentivize them

8. They’ll always need their hinterlands to feed them.

9. I would need you to define what environmentally sustainable means.

10. Build up not out, implement water conservation measures, use solar/wind/hydro power whenever possible, encourage architecture that naturally cools/heats a room rather then just relying on central air.

11. This entirely depends on what metrics you’re using.

    If you’re looking at this from an air quality perspective, the only answer is to spread people out more. ACs, furnaces, gas stoves, cars, factories, planes, etc etc, generate pollutants— until technology advances to the point that we can eliminate combustion sources, it’s just a matter of fact. Cities have poor air quality because there is a highly concentrated pocket of multiple emission sources that don’t allow for dispersion.

    If you’re looking at it from a waste perspective, again, technology needs to advance to make plastic recycling more feasible on a large scale, as well, as increased resources and education to the populace to increase recycling participation. However, this also needs to be done in a way that doesn’t contribute to air quality issues (see first paragraph)

    Water use? More efficient methods to reduce water consumption, as well as methods that minimize stormwater contamination (salt in the city streets is a huge problem up north… but also, there’s the safety of the public to consider, so it’s a complicated issue)