China Chokes on High Density Sprawl

Note: This article is part of a collaboration between Island Press and Public Square on a series of articles based on recently published books on subjects related to urbanism.

Cities affect our lives in profound, self-reinforcing ways: they can be a source of economic innovation, a pathway for poverty reduction, a brake on logarithmic demographic growth, and a solution to climate change—or they can reinforce economic isolation, heighten environmental impacts, and engender social strife. They represent 80 percent of global economic output and 70 percent of total energy and greenhouse gas emissions. Cities are the superstructure for the culture, lifestyles, aspirations, and well-being of half of the world’s population today and an estimated 70 percent by 2050. If they fail and become matrixes of gridlock, poisonous air, economic segregation, and environmental pollution, the planet will follow. If they succeed in lifting the next generation into sustainable productivity, integrating immigrants and working families into the next economy and living lightly on the land, they will contribute significantly to a civilized and sustainable future.

CNU and USDOT Announce Every Place Counts Design Challenge Winners

In cities across America, aging urban highways impose serious consequences on health, mobility, and opportunity in communities. For decades, residents of neighborhoods bisected by highways have suffered from higher levels of air and water pollution, decreased economic opportunity, limited mobility options, less-active lifestyles, and greater likelihood of being struck by a car and killed.

Now, after fifteen years of Highways to Boulevards advocacy, CNU is assisting the US Department of Transportation for the Every Place Counts Design Challenge, a federally-funded initiative to reconnect neighborhoods and improve community health, mobility, and opportunity.

Junk Infrastructure

Since the last recession, providing “infrastructure” has been synonymous with providing foundational facilities upon which communities can grow and prosper. Providing “infrastructure” is seen as inherently good. Similarly, food production is considered inherently positive too. After all, we want to feed the world’s population. However, we all know that there is such a thing as “junk food,” characterized by long shelf-lives, lots of calories, lots of salt, and low nutritional value. In so-called “food deserts,” populations don’t have access to nutritious food—only junk food—leading to negative health consequences.

Is there such a thing as “junk infrastructure”? Is there such a thing as infrastructure that damages cities, creates costs, and harms health? Sadly, there is. It’s known as “in-city highways.” Notice that I did not call them “urban highways.” Just because a highway is in a city, does not mean that it is urban. “Urban highway” is an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” or “clean coal.” The pattern is clear: When highways are built in cities, the place gets worse; when highways are removed from cities, the place gets better.