While watching this video by Alex Steffen on carbon free cities, I stumbled across the term eco-density. Eco density is a proposed way of encouraging the densification of cities, which is more environmentally friendly and also helps to reduce carbon emissions.
Still not sure what this means. Well, the idea is that development should take place in areas with a low to medium density that will allow more people to live there. The focus will be on sustainability, affordability and the ease of living.
So it sounds like eco-density means that people are proposing that we squash more people into a smaller area. Yes, the difference being this will lower carbon emissions as necessary services and goods will be more accessible to the public and the use of private vehicles will decrease.
Reading up some more on this issue, some people have criticized the idea especially when one considers housing prices. More densely populated cities tend to have higher house prices. Vancouver (wannabe greenest city of the world by 2020) is no exception. It seems that we are encouraging people to invest more expensively initially, using the long term pay-off as the added benefit.
Agree or disagree, I must say it seems to make more sense to offer people the ability to access the things they need within a closer range to their homes , and still help reduce carbon emissions. Win-win.
Think it’s possible, carbon free cities?
Video taken from Youtube: Alex Steffen the shareable future of cities
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