Co-design attended David Owen's lecture in Vancouver. A summary of Owen's ideas can be found in his blog here, and in the New Yorker article here. Owen argues that dense urban centres are an effective alternative to sprawl for preserving farmland and ecological habitats. And "living smaller, closer, driving less" reduces our carbon footprint. While this is true, I'm not convinced that density on the scale of NYC is a green solution.
If high-density urban centres preserve earth's wilderness and farmland by virtue of avoidance, then this solution might be even more green than NYC:
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| Moon base Alpha |
Density is an efficient solution but is it ecological? Ecological systems are self supporting. Take into consideration the following factors: living plants and animals forming the food source, waste absorbed by the landscape; inhabitant's psychological need for light and green space... If we now draw a radius from NYC , what would be the extent of the circle?
