Energy: patterns, planning and architecture

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Since we have only to look about us to document our wasteful habits, let us move on to point two of the last paragraph and evaluate the energy consumed by one segment of our society. And, since approximately 80% (my own personal evaluation) of America's energy is wasted in our urban centers, I find it interesting to compare an automobile-oriented American metropolitan area to a more pedestrian-directed European city (see accompanying chart),

PEDESTRIAN VS. AUTOMOBILE CITIES

When we compare the population/land ratios of the San Francisco Metropolitan Area and the Atlanta Metropolitan Area to the population/land ratio for Old Paris, we find that the two American cities consume somewhere between 18 and 70 times more land than the older European city. Although the actual median of 18 and 70 is 44, let's be conservative and say that the average U.S. city consumes only 30 times the amount of land that its European counterpart needs to house a given population.

This, of course, implies that American city systems—police, fire, transportation, etc.—cover 30 times the area that similar systems cover in Europe. Which, obviously, makes them more expensive to construct and maintain . . . and our taxpayers have to support that additional burden,

There are other implications: The plumbing and wiring networks in our cities are 30 times as long as they really need to be. Our children must travel 30 times farther to school and our workers must go 30 times farther to work. We might even say that U.S. cities are 30 times less efficient and 30 times less human than their European counterparts.

Perhaps that explains why, without unduly saddling its citizens with taxes, Paris has developed one of the world's largest park systems and lined its streets with trees, fountains and works of art for all-rich or poor—to enjoy. Or why Paris was able to construct a 105-mile-long metro system in 1900 and—in 1930—to develop a central steam heating system for 3/5 of the city (the fuel is the town's rubbish).

And that's not the worst of it (when viewed from our end of the bargain). For, interestingly enough, if Paris really is an average of 30 times more land efficient than the average U.S. city, it may well be 100times more energy efficient due to the fact that some 85% of the inhabitants of Paris walk, ride the bus or use the metro to get around. And, when one considers the total energy system—that is, material extraction for the production of automobiles; the cost of building and maintaining roads (which are 10 to 100 times wider than pedestrian ways) and cars; the enormous cost of constructing and the uglification of parking facilities: the loss of recreational, agricultural and living space to highways; and the pollution which private cars produce—it's easy to imagine that a pedestrian-oriented city of Europe could be 1,000 times more energy efficient than an American town which has surrendered to the automobile.

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