I agree with you. Also to me it's the larger cities that are environmentally unfriendly and hostile places like the parent described, not these smaller cities with suburbs. Just look at the 405 on a weekday. I live in a city of about 300k and it is perfect. Under 15 minutes anywhere in the city and I work from home so personally I don't even commute.
It definitely feels that way, unfortunately high rises are extremely energy, materials, and space efficient. Public transportation similarly reduces the needs for roads and fossil fuels.
NYC inner core may be toxic, but the average New Yorker’s environmental impact is well below the national average.
High rises are, but not very many people desire to live in a high rise. Hence the inefficiency. I mean if everyone lived in a 5x5 box it would be super efficient. But yeah, I think people would rather die first.
I'm also curious if you could actually back up that New York statement with some unbiased research.
“New York residents were using an average of 572 kWh a month in 2017.” NYC is so efficient that: “New York ranks 50th out of the 51 states and the District of Columbia. The only state with a lower per capita consumption is Rohde Island at 176 million Btu (MMBtu) or 51.6 MWh. The total 2016 U.S. consumption per capita was 301 million Btu (88.2 MWh).”
First you said environmental impact, not electricity usage which is very different.
Second that article makes it really unclear what is being included in "energy expenditures". In the earlier paragraphs it talks about electricity which makes sense given a.) it's extremely expensive in NY and b.) I'd imagine more heating comes from natural gas as opposed to AC in southern climates which comes from electricity.
It lacks a lot of critical information to measure environmental impact vs. other cities.
Lastly who is being included? Inner city residents only? Or metro area?
Edit: Feel free to do whatever research or literature review you want I don’t feel like trying to convince you.
Using electricity has an environmental impact. As does burning fossil fuels for heat etc, which is where the BTU numbers show up.
The biggest benefit is land use it’s self has an environmental impact. The ability to leave land for nature requires people not to be living on it. We don’t want wolves and buffalo walking through suburbs. Rabbits etc can’t graze on a paved roads, and drained swamps stop being swamps.
