CHAPTER 12
SALVAGING
SMART CITIES

Improving our cities’ efficiency, providing quality
low-income urban housing and increasing safety and
cooperation in urban centers are vital as we move into the
future. By creating a nationwide system of deconstructing
our current housing stock and cataloguing and reusing
the supplies, we can decrease the cost of building and
remodeling, and revitalize urban communities.

SMART, SUSTAINABLE urban development is a necessity. Not a political issue, sustainability in our city development is the way of the future. By choosing not to improve our urban livability by increasing walkability, community, safety and affordable housing, we are allowing ourselves to fall behind nations like Brazil and Japan in terms of efficiency and sustainability, which will translate into an economic deficiency as energy prices peak in coming years.

Designing sustainable cities that encourage community is a crucial part of the sustainability of our species moving into the future. Wisely using our reclaimed building supplies and housing stock can work into a sustainable vision of our cities. Urban planners are already working toward, and especially in other countries, implementing ways to improve the ecology of our modern cities, redesigning urban transport, encouraging walking and biking, recycling water, incorporating farming and providing higher-quality low-income housing settlements. In his book Plan B 4.0,1 Lester Brown, president of the research organization Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, outlines a plan for a sustainable future. His elegant, brilliant solution involves redesigning urban centers. Let’s consider how reclaimed housing can be integrated into that solution.

dot  The Importance of Cities

First, it’s important to understand the vitality of redesigning cities. As of 2008, for the first time in history, more than half of human beings live in urban settings. In the past 100 years, we have rapidly shifted from an agriculture-based species to an urban-based one. In 1900, 150 million people lived in cities. In 2000, 2.8 billion lived in cities — a 19-fold increase, Brown writes. He also notes our rapidly expanding city populations: In 1900, a handful of cities worldwide had a population of a million people or more. Today, 431 cities globally have that many inhabitants; 19 megacities — among them New York, Tokyo, Mexico City, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Sao Paulo and Beijing — have more than 10 million residents. In many of these cities, redesigning isn’t an option, it is a necessity as pollution renders air unbreatheable and congestion causes disruptive transportation delays. The matter is also economic. The Partnership for New York City, a group representing New York’s leading corporate and investment firms, estimates that traffic congestion in its metropolitan area costs the region $13 billion a year in lost time and productivity, wasted fuel and lost business revenue, Brown reports.

Despite the congestion and pollution hurdles many cities face, densely populated cities are beneficial from an environmental perspective. Compared with suburbanites, city dwellers use public transportation more, take advantage of densely packed businesses and often participate in green initiatives more. A 2008 study published by the Brookings Institute, a non-profit public policy organization in Washington DC, reported that the average American living in a metropolitan area had a carbon footprint 14 percent lower than those who lived outside cities.2 Other studies support the findings — the New York Times reported on several in its April 2009 article “The Relatively Green Urban Jungle”: A study by Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser and UCLA environmental ecologist Matthew Kahn found that cities generally have lower carbon outputs than suburbs. A worldwide study by David Dodman of the International Institute for Environment and Development in London found that per capita emissions from 12 major cities in Europe, Asia and North and South America were typically lower than their national average of per capita emissions. A study in China found that not only do city dwellers emit less carbon, but they are also more likely to participate in environmentally beneficial activities, reports Discovery News.3 The study, led by Michigan State University sustainability scientist Jianguo “Jack” Liu, surveyed 5,000 Chinese residents living in small and huge cities. The questions asked if, in the last year, residents had sorted garbage, talked about environmental issues, recycled plastic packaging bags, participated in environmental education programs or been involved with environmental litigation. The study found the environmentally active behaviors were more common among residents in the biggest cities than in residents in small cities. The researchers’ analysis also showed that environmentalism wasn’t linked to wealth or incomes — it was linked to employment, probably because many Chinese companies and organizations encourage employees to take environmental action by doing things like planting trees together, according to Discovery News.

City municipalities worldwide have demonstrated how to encourage shifts toward more environmentally beneficial behaviors through tax and transportation policies. Some cities have encouraged a shift away from car culture, which emits much more carbon than mass transit and biking and walking, by charging cars to enter cities. Singapore, Oslo, London and Stockholm are among major cities who charge congestion fees to vehicles entering the city. London adopted a congestion fee in early 2003, charging vehicles entering the city between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. a fee of £5 (roughly $8 at the time), reducing the number of cars traveling on city streets during peak times, Brown writes.4 In its first year, the tax led to a 38 percent increase in people taking buses into central London, and increased speed on key thoroughfares by 21 percent. The tax was increased and expanded in 2005, with the revenue being used to increase and improve public transportation. Since the adoption of the congestion fees, the daily flow of cars and cabs into central London during peak hours has dropped by 36 percent, while the number of bicycles has increased 66 percent, Brown reports. In Paris, government officials are working to reduce traffic congestion, with a goal of a 40 percent reduction by 2020. To support the goal, the City has adopted both congestion fees and a city bike rental program, which offers more than 20,000 bicycles for rent at 1,450 docking stations. The popular program is being mimicked by cities and universities in the United States. St. Xavier University in Chicago and Emory University in Atlanta have adopted bike-sharing programs to reduce traffic congestion on campus. At the University of New England in Maine and Ripon College in Wisconsin, incoming freshmen receive a free bike if they agree to leave their cars at home, Brown reports, a move the colleges say saves money over the cost of providing parking and congestion management.

All of these traffic-reduction methods showcase the ways in which cities can actively participate in a shift of resident behavior toward environmental, community and health-enhancing choices. Brown cites Bogota, Colombia, as one of the most rapidly altered cities in the world. Mayor Enrique Penalosa served as mayor of Bogota for three years, taking office in 1998. Penalosa was devoted to improving life for the 70 percent of his citizens who didn’t travel by car. In his short tenure, he “banned the parking of cars on sidewalks, created or renovated 1,200 parks, introduced a highly successful bus-based rapid transit system, built hundreds of kilometers of bicycle paths and pedestrian streets, reduced rush hour traffic by 40 percent, planted 100,000 trees, and involved local citizens directly in the improvement of their neighborhoods,” Brown writes.5

dot  Reclaiming the City

How does reclaimed housing work to help shift urban environments toward sustainability? As we’ve examined via the Phoenix Commotion, Builders of Hope and HabeRae, saving and improving urban homes increases civic pride and involvement in communities and cities. By reclaiming abandoned urban properties and structures, we increase the density of residential use of the city, allowing more people to live well in cities, rather than suburbs, and to live with nearby access to mass transit, along with jobs and businesses. Reclaiming rundown urban spaces also helps improve civic pride, which studies show decreases crime and fear of crime. Numerous studies and real-life examples show how renovating and using rundown city spaces improve city life. A community garden planted in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, on the site of a former dump reduced crime by 30 percent in its first summer, reports the London Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).6 In Los Angeles, a blighted park was renovated via a Summer Night Lights program. Municipal lights are left on in the park past midnight, and the city program offers free food, dancing lessons and sport leagues, along with increased law enforcement and gang intervention workers. In its first summer, the program saw a 17 percent decrease in violent, gang-related crimes around the parks, and a 10 percent overall city decrease in crime, reports the Wall Street Journal.7

Increasing home ownership also enhances neighborhood safety and community involvement. A study conducted by Robert Dietz of the Ohio State University Department of Economics and Center for Regional and Urban Analysis and funded by the Homeownership Alliance found that “through their investment in the home — and therefore in the local neighborhood — homeowners appear to be overall more involved in their communities. These efforts by homeowners generate benefits for their communities in addition to the benefits for their families.” Dietz cites four major benefits to homeowners and communities by increased home ownership:

1. Children of homeowners are likely to perform higher on academic achievement tests and are more likely to finish high school. Furthermore, children of homeowners have fewer behavioral problems in school and are less likely to become pregnant as teenagers. These outcomes survive many controls for parental education, marital status, and other statistical comparisons, as well as neighborhood characteristics.

2. Political activity, like voting, as well as participation in civic organizations is higher among homeowners than renters after controlling for personal characteristics and socioeconomic status.

3. Homeowners, again once controls are in place, are more satisfied with their lives and are happier.

4. Some of the most recent research suggests that a high level of homeowner-ship in neighborhoods enhances property values.8

If densely packed cities, with initiatives to improve transportation habits, and increased homeownership work together to improve urban safety and community involvement, using our vast stock of rundown, impoverished and abandoned housing creates a way to tie together these two goals. We can use inexpensive or free materials to build low-income housing rather than sending them to the landfill. Studies also show that when individuals directly participate in the improvement of their communities, it increases their investment in that community. Reusing and refurbishing urban buildings provides the opportunity to get community members involved in the betterment of communities. Taking inspiration from the Phoenix Commotion, an unskilled labor force that includes future homeowners could be used to build and renovate homes, providing training to these workers. Combining the savings of free or low-cost materials and labor will allow these reclaimed homes to be affordable for current city residents, improving communities without forcing out current residents.

By instituting a nationwide program that oversees the deconstruction of homes and catalogs and stores building supplies, we can create a stock of materials that renovators could depend upon to renovate homes and businesses in blighted urban areas. By creating a team of workers, with professional builders overseeing a rotating crew of untrained employees, who are tasked with renovating neighborhoods and homes, we can improve our cities by increasing our number of affordable homes and, therefore, our number of engaged, low-income homeowners.

We could also utilize our stock of used housing to improve conditions for the very poor and homeless. According to Brown, “Between 2000 and 2050, world population is projected to grow by 3 billion, but little of this growth is projected for industrial countries or for the rural developing world. Nearly all of it will take place in cities in developing countries, with much of the urban growth taking place in squatter settlements.”9 Squatter settlements the world over are inhabited by the extremely poor and are characterized by “grossly inadequate” housing and a lack of access to urban services, Brown writes. Most are extremely impoverished migrants who have moved from rural to urban settings in an attempt to improve their access to opportunities. Brown suggests one way to decrease squatter dwellings is to increase spending in smaller cities and rural areas in an attempt to curb migration to urban centers. But squatter settlements will continue to exist and grow; to address them adequately, cities must support squatter settlements rather than attempt to eliminate them. Curitiba in Brazil is on the cutting edge of urban planning. The City designated specific tracts of land for squatter settlements, allowing the City to better structure the design of the areas and to improve basic provisions such as clean water and healthy waste disposal, decreasing disease and its associated medical expenses. Regular bus services also offer transportation to places of employment, Brown writes.

Brown suggests planning these communities so they are places where individuals are fostered to improve their lives. By incorporating community spaces and parks, we can decrease crime and improve safety and togetherness in these spaces. By providing transportation, we can increase employment opportunities. As Brown contends, “Although political leaders might hope these settlements will one day be abandoned, the reality is that they will continue expanding. The challenge is to integrate them into urban life in a humane and organized way that provides hope through the potential for upgrading. The alternative is mounting resentment, social friction and violence.”10

If our ability to improve society as a whole depends on our ability to provide adequate, safe, healthy very low-income housing, the supply of used housing materials can play a big role. A nationwide program that deconstructs and stores building materials could not only provide supplies for low-income urban communities, but also provide them for a stock of settlements that aid the destitute. Decreasing the cost of building supplies for these homes helps make government assistance programs of this sort more affordable, and reusing materials in this way keeps them out of the landfill, doing good rather than languishing.