Green Metropolis by David Owen
I liked David Owen’s new book, Green Metropolis (free copy from publisher), as much as I thought I would. Owen critidizes a large fraction of the environmental movement for missing the point that big cities like New York are the greenest communities in America. To make a community green you need two things: high density and great public transportation. They go together: high density makes great public transportation possible. In large chunks of New York, unlike most big American cities, it’s easy to not have a car.
The book has plenty of villains. Bill McKibben has written many books: one about global warming, one about cutting back on consumerism, one about having only one child (to save the earth from overpopulation), one called Hope, Human and Wild about environmentalism — yet he lives in a small town in upstate New York, which requires him to use a lot of energy for heating and travel that he wouldn’t have to use if he lived in New York City. (McKibben is my example, not Owen’s.) A great many environmentalists, Owen says, have causes or goals that have little to do with reducing energy use. They tend to see themselves as preserving the past rather than shaping the future — an excellent point. That’s something Jane Jacobs might have said and if the book has a hero, it’s her. “Jacobs’s focus was on the vibrancy of city life but the same urban qualities she identified as enhancing human interaction also greatly reduce energy consumption and waste,” Owen writes.
Owen sees himself almost as deluded as the average environmentalist. He and his family moved from Manhattan to rural New England when their daughter was one year old. How she will love the country, thought Owen. She didn’t. Walking through the country bored her far more than walking through the city. “And it [a country walk] usually has the same effect on me, although I hate to admit it,” he writes.
Why did my self-experimentation discover a lot? Because a lot remained to be discovered. The discoveries I made weren’t made by the experts who should have made them (e.g., sleep experts)Â because they were too busy doing research whose main goal was to impress other people. Rather than do science that worked, they did science that looked good. It’s the same with environmentalists. Rather than do projects that work (save energy), they do projects that feel good. “Sitting indoors playing video games is easier on the environment than any number of (formerly) popular outdoor recreational activities, including most of the ones that the most committed environmentalists tend to favor for themselves,” says Owen, neatly summing up the problem.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Seth: You write, “In large chunks of New York, unlike anywhere else in America, it’s easy to not have a car.”
When we both lived in Berkeley, California, it was easy to not have a car. I didn’t have one, and I don’t think you did either!
I get your general point, but I think you’re a bit too quick to make judgments on what is easy. There are tradeoffs: a car gives you some conveniences, and it creates other costs and inconveniences.
Regarding your last point, I think you’re generalizing about “environmentalists,” just as you’d similarly be making mistakes if you generalized about “conservatives” or “liberals” or “religious people” or whatever. I also don’t understand how that Owen quote is “summing up the problem.” I agree that it’s an interesting thought, but what’s the point: we all should be sitting inside playing video games (or blogging)? Or is the point that it’s ok to do outdoor activities such as hiking, skiing, hunting, fishing, but only if you don’t call yourself an “environmentalist”? Would Bill McKibbin be a better person if he’d written a book in favor of consumerism? I haven’t actually read anything by Bill McKibbin, so maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see your point here.
January 29th, 2010 at 7:41 am
“When we both lived in Berkeley it was easy to not have a car.” Then why do most Berkeley non-student households have cars? If you have children in Berkeley, you must have a car.
Re “environmentalists”. Sure, statements that this or that correlation is perfect are wrong. No actual correlations are 1.0. Not all environmentalists fit my description. But Owen gave many examples of misguided envirornmentalism, so many that it painted the picture I describe: A large fraction of environmentalists work on projects that miss the point. Of course not all. Of course it is good to encourage bike riding and better public transit, for example. The video-game quote sums up the book in the sense that a lot of environmentalists have a pro-nature anti-city bias that gets in the way of them doing things that help. Bill McKibben would be a more effective environmentalist if he lived in a big city. Then he would be exposed to the problems that need to be solved. And he could write about how to solve them. McKibben is like an American academic who knows almost nothing about Africa but is quite sure he knows what should happen there for Africa to improve.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:24 am
If I lived in Berkeley with my family, I can assure you, I would not have a car. “Must have” is what you make of it.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:34 am
I live in Chicago and, while I had a car for the first year that I lived here, it died two years ago and I never replaced it. Chicago covers a greater expanse of land than NYC, to be sure, and the further away from the lake, the less likely you’ll have easy access to the quick transportation of trains, but there are always bus routes to get you where you need to be. While I haven’t needed to sign up for the partnership between the CTA and ZipCar because I don’t mind walking a few blocks to the grocery store, the option is easily accessible for those rare times I might need a car.
Besides, knowing I can only walk out of any store with what I can carry really cuts down on the over- and unnecessary buying. Granted, I don’t have childen, nor do I plan to have children, but I have friends with children who don’t have cars, either. NYC may have more train lines and a larger number of people who strive to be green, but Chicago isn’t exactly lagging in this department.
January 30th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Thanks, Kaylee. I have fixed the post.