The Green New Deal and Density

A large part of my enthusiasm for promoting development that facilitates dense, city living is the belief that it is more sustainable, in terms of both resource and energy consumption. Accordingly, Alex Baca’s piece in Slate (though not its headline) rang true to me: The Green New Deal’s Huge Flaw. The author, Alex Baca, calls out not exactly a “flaw” in AOC’s proposal, but that by failing to address the car-centric structure of America, the Green New Deal is missing out on a key way to reduce both energy consumption and economic inequality.

A large part of Baca’s argument is the claim that personal car usage is a large fraction of America’s energy consumption and pollution. According to Baca, “America’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is transportation. In California, the proportion of CO2 from transportation is even higher: above 40 percent.” To dig into that a bit, the “transportation sector” defined for most energy studies includes both passenger and freight, as well as all vehicles from motorcycles to airplanes to cargo ships. The EIA report on worldwide Transportation Sector Energy Consumption says, “Passenger or personal mobility-related fuel consumption accounted for 61% of total world transportation energy consumption in 2012. Among the personal mobility modes of transport, light-duty vehicles accounted for 44% of total world transportation energy use.” The share of personal vs. total transport for Americans is even higher, suggesting that indeed a large fraction of emissions can be attributed to personal cars. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported that transportation accounted for over 30% of national energy consumption in 2017 (also their flow charts are amazing for understanding energy use, and they’ve been producing them since the 70s!!).

“But the Green New Deal is all about electric vehicles!” you retort. Sure, but better than converting gasoline vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to electric VMT would be reducing VMT entirely.

Baca rightly attributes America’s intense dependence on cars to suburban sprawl, enabled by highways and federal spending packages of decades past and current. An ambitious policy like the Green New Deal could work to reverse that trend, focusing development on increasing density in existing cities, instead of building even further out exurbs. Baca also acknowledges the *convenient* housing crisis, stating “the scale of housing demand at this moment is such that we could build...in car-centric suburbs, too, and provide a human density that would not just support transit but also reduce the need to travel as shops, jobs, and schools crop up within walking distance.” Density density density!

Baca also provides a good summary of how sprawl exacerbates existing economic disadvantage by gating access to employment and services on access to a personal vehicle.

She concludes by citing a few specific recommendations for AOC’s proposal: tracking transportation-related emissions and explicitly combat spatial mismatch between jobs and residences.

“A Green New Deal must insist on a new, and better, land use regime, countering decades of federal sprawl subsidy. The plan already recognizes the need to retrofit and upgrade buildings. Why not address their locations while we’re at it?”