Green Metropolis ~ For Clean Living, Go Urban

Very compelling to read about Green Metropolis by David Owen. The Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley reviews this book in a piece called Clean Living...

"Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, And Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability. Owen finds in New York City, Manhattan in particular, a model that the rest of the country could profitably emulate. A city of "extreme compactness," New York "is the greenest community in the United States." The "average Manhattanite consumes gasoline at a rate that the country as a whole hasn't matched since the mid-1920s," and "eighty-two percent of employed Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot," which is "ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County." It all derives from being a very crowded place."

Beyond density, of course, are other important dimensions, including amenities such as competent mass transit, efficient hackney, rental, and rideshare services, aggressive automation, glorious greenroofs and delightful parks and accessible greenspaces. Vital Cities are more urgently needed than ever!