I'm a staunch environmentalist, but this seems to go too far. You can't have everything. You can't have a city that prevent sprawl AND provides spread out living. I'm all for urban gardens and city parks but I also think that denser is better. It's better for public transportation, it requires less utilities and it's easier on energy requirements. I do realize it's not a perfect solution, but it's much better than urban sprawl

Gal

this guy makes no sense!!- i live in a sky scraper and the reason i have a beutifull huge park to walk in just down stairs is because there is not a feild of low rize houses and little gardens in the back yard that only they can enjoy. no natural spaces? highrizes free up a hell of a lot more room for natural spaces than urban sprall!

Why it should be like this? I don't get it. Why not to let people work at home? Nowadays technology allow us (people) to work for a company been perfectly at home and no need to move every morning to the office. This way each of us could life in a "far away to the office" house with a nice garden and lots of free space (instead of having to stay thousands of people living in the same amount of square meters). Imagine yourselves with a normal 100Mbps synchronic Internet connection as a regular connection (not just you, 'cause you need to share with, at least, the office) and staying at home with a IP Phone (from the company) that allow you to make all those calls you need to do (for business reason), or perhaps having a business cellular phone to do all of them, then you have your outlook through Exchange server (of course this is just a showing you the picture, it does not matter if we would use another brand systems than MS, okay?) that allow you to work with your partners at your job and customers as well. Then even you could access to the VPN of the company to access the company' files and even you could have a WEBCAM under your IP PHONE or under the monitor to see your job's team and for meeting reasons and even there could be a program that measures all the job you do to evaluate yourself (in order to pay you what you deserve). Well, all like this would allow us perfectly staying several miles away from the office (even in the other part of the world) and we would have much more time for our privet lives, we would spend less money for moving to the office, and lots of saving money for the company as well, that could invest in other things (as for instance in more valuable things for their workers, a higher salary perhaps?).

Well, as you see, I don't think this post shows the real need for our future and I rather see we are running in the opposite direction instead.

It seems like this would be solved simply by introducing a green space requirement into the legislation. The dense areas could surround extended if narrow parks or ravines, or where the builders prefers, some of the green space could be introduced into roofs or parking/driving areas. Designing around somewhat wild boat/skating paths would improve transportation, give people wildly more access to the natural world , and introduce habitat that is of a higher quality than that in most suburbs. I also think it is important to design in spaces where people can garden. This doesn't seem to be an indictment of density, only of bad design.

Talk about drawing questionable conclusions from innocuous premises. This post could benefit greatly from having any data associated with it. The final sentence is simply, and factually incorrect.

Dense cities do not have to imply the total absence of nature. NYC is quite dense and has a fair amount of open space. So does London. Minneapolis is exceptionally green in having about 15 acres of open space per 1,000 people. Boston is close to the US average at 5 acres/1,000.

How little is too little? What is the best type, form and arrangement of open space to benefit people and to benefit nature? Those are useful questions, worthy of study. Might an enormous open area provide minimal recreational, aesthetic and environmental qualities? Could care and planning allow small open spaces to provide more substantial benefits. How do we set about maximizing these benefits? Those are useful questions, worthy of study.

Should any and all areas of every city grow like topsy? Obviously not. Is every large development beneficial and appropriate? This is simply a straw man argument and does little to advance a very important discussion.

I live in Massachusetts and we have a successful, new state program to encourage housing near transit nodes at 80 dwelling units per acre, rather like the 30-50/hectare referred to. This is dense. Is it too dense? Maybe in some places. But density is necessary to support a viable transit system, which is necessary for urban livability and viability. Suburban densities do not provide enough density to justify transit, or much else in the way of local services.

If the author is suggesting that all new development must happen at very high densities on previously greenfield sites, then he has a limited point. Should Hampstead Heath see a forest of towers for 100,000 residents? No more than Central Park should be the site of a new oil refinery. And no more likely to occur, in reality.

Sprawl, consuming vast amounts of productive landscapes at low density, is the enemy. So is single use zoning. So is having to rely on cars and trucks for most transport needs. In the US, population growth is slowing, while land consumption and energy use is accelerating.

If we put the 1,000,000 people living on Manhattan into detached homes on 1/4 acre lots they would occupy 781 square miles, 65 times as much area as they now use. That diffusion would translate into a need for vastly more roadway, wiring, piping, local governance, etc, and would mean that nearly none of the cultural activity and institutions that characterize Manhattan could be supported. The loss of the magnificent natural landscape of manhattan is certainly to be regretted. But is it really better to disperse that localized damage?

Redevelopment of cities, and maintaining and increasing their densities as appropriate, is part of the answer. Development should focus on reusing existing buildings that are underutilized, recovering and developing brownfield sites, and leveraging existing infrastructure. Redevelopment often supplants low density housing with denser configurations, not requiring new open space.

Density does not have to mean destroying nature. A stroll through other Treehugger posts would quickly show that there are many efforts underway to better reintegrate the natural world at the heart of, and throughout cities. Development can certainly harm nature, but nature is also phenomenally resilient. Nature is also not concerned with our notions of aesthetics.

Other points are slender to the point of being specious: Pigeons were rather rare until the development of skyscapers. Should I be worry for the fate of the entire species that more tall buildings might pose?

Old buildings, like masonry and timer loft buildings store a lot of carbon. More efficient dense buildings require far less fossil fuels to heat, per unit, than less dense housing, helping sequester carbon by leaving the coal and oil in the ground.

A silver or white roof has far higher reflectance that a forest canopy. A city comprise of green and reflective roofs on buildings, and with mature street trees shading the roads would have more reflectance than a meadow or cornfield. Well tended, it might produce more, higher quality food than a cornfield.

Sloppy work like this, mindlessly spread and parroted, gives environmentalism and planning an undeservedly bad reputation. Please don't compound the error further.

As a hardened city slicker, I can only say I'm ectatic such legislation is being passed. Suburban sprawl seems to be what's destroying our true green spaces, rather than urban densification. Even the stupidest city planner knows that there needs to be large parks between development. Also, a novel idea that may actually work, planting greens on the roofs of buildings may in fact reduce the extra heat a city can generate. Lastly, whereas suburban sprawl removes truly pristine nature from a 100 mile radius around a city, urban densisification at its most could only take half of that, meaning someone would only need to travel 1/2 the distance for a true back to nature experience, such as camping, hiking or fishing. I'm confident that for day to day green space needs, urban parks qualify well. In fact, I bet most people would prefer them to the types of suburban greens, because there's beautiful architecture in them, beautiful people, and often you don't have to walk too far in case you get thirsty and need a soda.

Let's build up, not out!

While the problems with a lack of green space seem true to me, I don't see a strong link made here that shows high density precludes green space. In fact I think it's often the reverse: instead of everyone having a tiny garden to care for, we can share much larger, more versatile, more useful spaces. Having recently lived in lovely Stockholm that has plenty of green space, I checked it's density: 39.77 persons per hectare. It's central areas would be higher and still retain large, beautiful parks in which quiet and private spaces can regularly be found.

Yes, cities in general can be more green than sprawling suburbs, however, very tall buildings and sky scrapers are NOT green. In an energy-scarce future with expensive oil and natural gas, it will be extremely difficult and costly to heat these mammoth-like structures.

There is nothing about the shape of a skyscraper that makes it inherently difficult to heat/insulate. Yes, they are exposed to more continuous winds than more ground-hugging structures, but good insulation can overcome that. There are other energy costs inherent in skyscrapers, but many of these could be compensated for with built-in solar PV arrays or wind turbines located on the building.

Here, I don't think that the article necessarily means tall buildings, as much as high density of residences. The high density limits open and green spaces, which is detrimental both the human and environmental health.

Red Herring alert!

First, for some facts.
1) According to Google, 1 hectare = 2.47 acres
2) Therefore, 30-50 units per hectare = 12-20 units per acre - decidedly not "High density," nor does it require high-rises to achieve it, even with substantial green space
3) For context, post WWII developments in the the US (typical cape cods, with similar duplexes mixed into neighborhoods) often have densities of 10 units an acre, even with their postage-stamp yards.

There is a long tradition of achieving high densities in urban locations and maintaining plenty of green space. I just returned from the Netherlands studying urban design and architecture, and they would laugh at such low densities in most communities. I also stopped in Brooklyn on my way home (Park Slope, where densities easily surpass 30-50/ha). I put together a lazy web page showing some of the ways people maintain their connections to green space (not even including parks) in those contexts. See here: http://www.flisrand.com/travels/holland/Greenness/Greenness.html

Um, and I forgot to note - within planning and green building academic worlds, the topic has been discussed to death!

Sprawl is not necessarily a bad thing.

In Defense Of Sprawl:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/06/11/defense-sprawl-suburbs-biz-21cities_cx_rb_0611sprawl.html?boxes=custom