If You Want to be Good to Nature, Stay Away From It | Feb 12th at 12:54pm
Ed Glaeser begins the conference with a great anecdote. Henry David Thoreau, “patron saint of the environment,” was having a picnic at Walden Pond when he started a fire by mistake. The fire spread and ended up consuming 300 acres of forest. Apparently, no one did more damage to Concord, Mass. nature than Thoreau. Glaeser’s take on it: if you want to be good to nature, stay away from it. In other words, is he suggesting that urban centers are kind to the environment? Meanwhile, he moves on to discuss the environmental benefits of building densely in face of the tax policies that promote single-family homes.
Diana Lind is editor in chief of Next American City.
JRoth in Pittsburgh on Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 4:12pm
In other words, is he suggesting that urban centers are kind to the environment?
A few years ago it was counterintuitive to say, but now it’s a commonplace that New York City (and Manhattan in particular) is the greenest place in the country, with far smaller per capita carbon footprint than anywhere else.
tax policies that promote single-family homes.
I’d just like to note that the suburbs are filled with garden apartments and townhouse developments that, as physical forms, would fit perfectly well in an urban context (indeed, a fair amount of the new urban development of the past 15 years has been somewhat unfortunately like those places plopped down on city blocks). I think the mortgage deduction has become an artificial stand-in for other policies that urbanists rightly disapprove of.