Book Review: Green Metropolis by David Owen

Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability, by David Owen. 

Based on the subject matter and publicity this book has received, it was practically mandatory that I read it, but I was not expecting much. I was very pleasantly surprised. Owen takes on pop conventional wisdom at every turn and takes the wind out of many environmental sails. The main argument of the book is that many of our attempts at being green (i.e. reducing our carbon emissions) are futile without striving for density, with Manhattan as the best American example. Slapping solar panels on a McMansion in a new greenfield development does not make a green building, says Owen, because the real environmental damage is the infrastructure that supports the sprawl, and the amount of driving it takes to live in a typical suburban town. The most important number in your car isn't the gas mileage, he says, it's the odometer. 

"Oil is liquid civilization: we  are what we burn."


Owen has some harsh words for the LEED system, mostly for contributing to what he calls "LEED brain," which I summarize as forsaking common sense for racking up points for green building projects in order to gain recognition. He offers common sense tips for making a new home green, including build a small home on a small infill lot, thoroughly caulk and insulate it, and use efficient appliances. He says that many of these points, especially the importance of caulking and insulating, aren't particularly glamorous or  photogenic like small residential wind turbines, which he thinks are "wasteful investments in inappropriate technology." He quotes Thomas L Friedman's latest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded," his chapter title "If it isn't Boring, it isn't Green" which Owen says is a reminder of the "dangers and temptations of LEED brain." I can't totally agree with this, as I believe there are exciting technologies that can reduce carbon emissions and great recycled products, but I have been accused of being a regressionist, and tend to think that green building is mostly common sense, and has been for all of human history until the industrial revolution, when we started to use brute force against nature instead of working with it.

Owen discusses the new Sprint Headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, which has been recognized as a "green" building and has the typical green building rap sheet. Owen says:


"There is nothing truly ecologically enlightened about Sprint's Overland Park campus, no matter how many so-called green features the individual buildings include, or how much recaptured runoff water the ground staff uses when irrigating the complex's dozens of acres of lawn,  or many bicycles are (theoretically) made available  for trips between buildings, or how many trees the company has planted, or how many PETA-certified border collies are used to keep migratory birds from defecating around the edges of the man-made "wetland area"...The campus is a sprawl bomb, and the "open space" preserved on the property merely makes the impact worse."


An office like this would be much more environmentally friendly if it were placed all in one office town in downtown Kansas City (where there is surely high vacancy), creating more critical mass in downtown which would allow for more efficient transit from the suburbs. He also has harsh words for the Rocky Mountain Institute's headquarters in Snowmass, Colorado, which is also packed with sustainable features, but in a "thinly populated area," meaning that employees have no other choice but to drive to work.

Oh, and I love the term "sprawl bomb." I'm going to see if I can use it in a sentence soon.



The most interesting point that Owen makes is that the most critical environmental issues facing a city are not planting green roofs and trees, or allowing rain barrels and solar panels. He argued that the most critical environmental issues facing a city are law enforcement,street noise, resources for the elderly, crime, parks, and schools-the quality (or lack thereof) these things are what causes people to abandon the city for the suburbs, especially when they have kids. The more people stay in the city (and in turn the more children raised in the city) the higher the density and the tax base, and therefore the quality of life. Owen mentions cities such as Minneapolis where schools are being closed in the cities while taxes are being levied to build more schools in the sprawling suburbs. If services were better in the city, more families could stay and their kids could attend established schools--which not only saves money because the schools are already built, but these schools are more likely to be serviced by roads with sidewalks and public transit, obviously rare in the suburbs. 

The question that lingered in my mind for most of the book, as I'm sure it does for most readers since Owen answered it at the end, is if he thinks Manhattan is so great, why doesn't he live there anymore? He and his wife lived there for seven years before relocating to rural Connecticut.  

The answer is, of course, not everyone can live in Manhattan. From my previous blog post, "Green Building Myths": Per ca pita, rural areas have higher carbon footprints than dense cities like NYC, which is arguably the most important metric when considering what's "green". But a rural area may seem "cleaner" because of the lack of air pollution (which can be concentrated in cities), green spaces, clean water, and the general aesthetic and aromatic pleasantness that comes with a lower population density, like lawns, gardens, and contained trash. We need to understand these differences and strive to improve the undesirable aspects of city living while building on its virtues. 

References: Sierra Club Challenge to Sprawl
Urban Land Institute Booklet (PDF): Higher Density Development: Myth & Fact

Related books I recommend: 

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Jeff Speck

Asphalt Nation by Jane Holtz Kay 

The Geography of Nowhere: the Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler.