By Bruce Stutz
Can eco-towns stop the sprawling suburbs? Urban sprawl is a modern
phenomenon most prominent in the United States and spreading into parts
of Europe, it has many consequences which include the rising carbon
emissions from modern consuming habits such private car use.
This article is a selection of excerpts from two recent articles
by Bruce Stutz ‘The New Urbanists: Tackling Europe’s Sprawl’ and
‘Britain’s Elusive Eco-Town Dream’. Stutz analyses the debate
surrounding ‘eco-town’ developments which many regard as practical
solutions for a carfree and carbon-free future, as well as the
principles of New Urbanism which are gaining in popularity for urban
development.
The Super Sprawl
In the last few decades,
urban sprawl, once regarded as largely a US
phenomenon, has spread across Europe. Improved transport links –
highways designed to accommodate increased freight traffic – have led to
American-style intercity corridors built up with new industrial and
commercial developments. Auto-centric suburbs with low-density housing
tracts and shopping malls have followed, and public transit has not been
able to keep pace. Now an emerging group of planners are promoting a
new kind of development – mixed-use, low-carbon communities which are
pedestrian-friendly and
mass-transit-oriented.
A nearly iconic fact of life in the US, urban sprawl had been slow to
evolve in Europe. Cities from Luxembourg to Prague, from Madrid to
Istanbul, are experiencing accelerating sprawl and its increased
automobile traffic, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, energy consumption,
land fragmentation, natural resource degradation, watershed damage,
farmland decline, and social polarisation –has become a major concern
across the continent. Over the last 20 years, the number of kilometres
travelled in urban areas will increase 40%, an increase that will negate
any expected gains in fuel efficiency, and make reaching Europe’s Kyoto
goals of reducing CO2 emissions nearly impossible. In the newest EU
countries, those in Eastern Europe that had been communist, the changes
have been even drastic. Central planning demanded high-density housing
and public transit. With its entry into the EU in 2007, Romania’s
economy grew 5.7%, and the year after, 7.5%. This economic development
drove residential construction up 29.3% in 2007, and along with it, the
number of cars – up 27%.
Enter New Urbanists
For the new urbanists, building an eco-town is not a matter of
building ‘green’ buildings. More important is creating places that
encourage people to change their unsustainable behaviours and then
enable them to do it. New urbanism arose in the 1980s in reaction to the
planning and design practices of the preceding decades.
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