Thanks, that was a wonderful read. Having made my living as an artist, musician, etc. I know that place of no retirement. Best of luck, and please keep writing.
• In my actions I am focused on resilience and equity.
• My position on housing is consistent: We need more housing for low income people, not more market rate housing. At the City Council I am also working on urban forestry. Hopefully we can significantly improve Seattle's management of that resource. It’s been pretty appalling.
• Speaking to your larger questions, growth and density etc. I disagree with your assumption that dense = lower GHC across the board. There is a lot of work showing that wealth is at least as important; the more money, the more GHGs—flygskam! I am convinced that lots of the energy problem will take care of itself as systems collapse to support our stupid and glutinous level of consumption. Apology for repeat, but for this point, please read Ivan Illich's short book "Energy and Equity." "Socialism can only be reached by bicycle."
• Suburbs are not inherently high GHG; that's only because of the poor way we allocate allowances for moving people and goods around.
• I am agnostic on the size of cities and how people distribute themselves that will work best. I am not agnostic on models that cause gentrification and displacement; I reject them as bad policy.
"It was the early days of the movement for more sustainable, green cities, developing concepts for urban areas that moved away from auto dependence to walking, biking and transit, where building up rather than out was proposed as an alternative to sprawl."
Patrick, what happened to Limits to Growth (both the book and the meme)? The above sounds like a YIMBY talking point. There can be no "sustainability" until we deal with our addiction to growth. It's not only the oligarchs who don't want to think/talk about limits and overshoot; it's most of us. It's pretty much a taboo topic in our culture and political-economy. Please address it.
It’s a nuanced discussion. If you are going to have growth, it is clear that suburban sprawl is the worst kind of growth, and concentration in existing centers far better, because it facilitates lower use of cars, and greater building energy efficiency. Multifamily v. single home. It might be better, as we have discussed, to have it spread to regional centers rather than concentrated in the core metropolis. I think the garden cities concept Mumford promoted based on Howard’s ideas is a road unfortunately not taken. I’ve written about that. https://theraven.substack.com/p/from-sprawling-gigantism-to-the-garden Whether or not we are going to have growth, or limit it, is another discussion, and we have conversed on this before. Yes, I actually think we are hitting limits now, as the LTG models predicted for this timeframe back in the early 70s. I have gotten at the issues of growth in my series on Scheidler’s Megamachine. https://theraven.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-megamachine?r=36q38&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. It is so fundamental to our system, it is hard to see it changing without upheaval and a certain level of collapse of the old order. I do see more discussion of degrowth, and I want to approach that.
"If you are going to have growth..." This assumption is the problem. It's not nuanced at all, unless you call denial "nuance." We cannot growth more and at the same time move toward sustainability. We are already far beyond overshoot and bringing the 2 or 3 billion who don't have a minimum decent life with the needed flow of energy and resources it takes do that—even assuming we in the wealthy West ramp down—isn't going to happen. Of course "a certain level of collapse" is increasingly inevitable. How could it not be?
As for the "we have conversed on this before," yes we have. The "urban density is better than suburban sprawl" argument is fallacious. Making that argument allows you to avoid the policy point; we need more affordable housing, not just "more" housing. The trickle down urbanists (aka YIMBYs) will push again in the 2023 Legislature to require urban areas to allow more density without any requirement that the resulting new housing be affordable for lower income households. Or that the destroyed existing housing affordable to low income household will be replaced 1 for 1 or nearby.
Continuing our slo-mo discussion, I don’t fundamentally disagree we are in overshoot. I’ve believed that since the 80s. I’m just looking for a soft landing. There is a momentum to growth that can’t be denied. So how to accommodate it? With high-resource consumption sprawl, or somewhat more resource thrifty dense urban development? Using less land and energy. The issue of affordable housing is crucial, but this is about all housing and development. The suburbs are one of the most intractable problems in getting climate pollution down, with their land use that demands car use. We all know the limitations of EVs. A society that focuses growth in dense urban areas will be better able to weather the storm.
Thanks, that was a wonderful read. Having made my living as an artist, musician, etc. I know that place of no retirement. Best of luck, and please keep writing.
Gwyllm
Thanks for your questions. Some responses:
• In my actions I am focused on resilience and equity.
• My position on housing is consistent: We need more housing for low income people, not more market rate housing. At the City Council I am also working on urban forestry. Hopefully we can significantly improve Seattle's management of that resource. It’s been pretty appalling.
• Speaking to your larger questions, growth and density etc. I disagree with your assumption that dense = lower GHC across the board. There is a lot of work showing that wealth is at least as important; the more money, the more GHGs—flygskam! I am convinced that lots of the energy problem will take care of itself as systems collapse to support our stupid and glutinous level of consumption. Apology for repeat, but for this point, please read Ivan Illich's short book "Energy and Equity." "Socialism can only be reached by bicycle."
• Suburbs are not inherently high GHG; that's only because of the poor way we allocate allowances for moving people and goods around.
• I am agnostic on the size of cities and how people distribute themselves that will work best. I am not agnostic on models that cause gentrification and displacement; I reject them as bad policy.
"It was the early days of the movement for more sustainable, green cities, developing concepts for urban areas that moved away from auto dependence to walking, biking and transit, where building up rather than out was proposed as an alternative to sprawl."
Patrick, what happened to Limits to Growth (both the book and the meme)? The above sounds like a YIMBY talking point. There can be no "sustainability" until we deal with our addiction to growth. It's not only the oligarchs who don't want to think/talk about limits and overshoot; it's most of us. It's pretty much a taboo topic in our culture and political-economy. Please address it.
It’s a nuanced discussion. If you are going to have growth, it is clear that suburban sprawl is the worst kind of growth, and concentration in existing centers far better, because it facilitates lower use of cars, and greater building energy efficiency. Multifamily v. single home. It might be better, as we have discussed, to have it spread to regional centers rather than concentrated in the core metropolis. I think the garden cities concept Mumford promoted based on Howard’s ideas is a road unfortunately not taken. I’ve written about that. https://theraven.substack.com/p/from-sprawling-gigantism-to-the-garden Whether or not we are going to have growth, or limit it, is another discussion, and we have conversed on this before. Yes, I actually think we are hitting limits now, as the LTG models predicted for this timeframe back in the early 70s. I have gotten at the issues of growth in my series on Scheidler’s Megamachine. https://theraven.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-megamachine?r=36q38&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web. It is so fundamental to our system, it is hard to see it changing without upheaval and a certain level of collapse of the old order. I do see more discussion of degrowth, and I want to approach that.
"If you are going to have growth..." This assumption is the problem. It's not nuanced at all, unless you call denial "nuance." We cannot growth more and at the same time move toward sustainability. We are already far beyond overshoot and bringing the 2 or 3 billion who don't have a minimum decent life with the needed flow of energy and resources it takes do that—even assuming we in the wealthy West ramp down—isn't going to happen. Of course "a certain level of collapse" is increasingly inevitable. How could it not be?
As for the "we have conversed on this before," yes we have. The "urban density is better than suburban sprawl" argument is fallacious. Making that argument allows you to avoid the policy point; we need more affordable housing, not just "more" housing. The trickle down urbanists (aka YIMBYs) will push again in the 2023 Legislature to require urban areas to allow more density without any requirement that the resulting new housing be affordable for lower income households. Or that the destroyed existing housing affordable to low income household will be replaced 1 for 1 or nearby.
Please read Condon's book on this topic: "Sick City": https://www.utopianurbanism.com/p/guest-patrick-condon-author-of-sick#details
Continuing our slo-mo discussion, I don’t fundamentally disagree we are in overshoot. I’ve believed that since the 80s. I’m just looking for a soft landing. There is a momentum to growth that can’t be denied. So how to accommodate it? With high-resource consumption sprawl, or somewhat more resource thrifty dense urban development? Using less land and energy. The issue of affordable housing is crucial, but this is about all housing and development. The suburbs are one of the most intractable problems in getting climate pollution down, with their land use that demands car use. We all know the limitations of EVs. A society that focuses growth in dense urban areas will be better able to weather the storm.