When Michael Bloomberg announced the city’s 2030 plan for creating a sustainable city capable of absorbing a million more residents, I’m sure skeptics thought this is an initiative that will be easily forgotten in a few years.  This inventory is a significant first step in that process, and an indication of the Bloomberg administration’s commitment to the plan.  Architectural Record referred to the audit as “the most comprehensive ever undertaken by a city.”  The findings establish a baseline for the city as it moves toward its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030, making it far easier for critics to hold the city accountable for meeting its objectives.  In a time when many government agencies and corporations are making all sorts of claims about pursuing sustainability, New York appears to be actually doing something about it.

I have long felt that highly individualized behavior, liking driving a car, is the most difficult behavior to influence on any kind of scale.  Institutional behavior, such as how companies operate or buildings are constructed and powered, can more easily be altered because new technologies or processes can be introduced across entire systems.  So while New York City faces the challenge of squeezing energy efficiency out of nearly a million legacy structures, the challenge is not nearly as great as getting drivers in places like Atlanta or Houston to use their cars less.  In New York’s case, system wide improvements will impact the source of 80% of its emissions.  No other city has the opportunity to substantially reduce its emissions which such a focused set of initiatives.

The only city that may come close to New York in terms of per capita carbon footprint is its neighbor across the Hudson River: Jersey City, New Jersey.  According to Smart Growth America, Jersey City is the second least sprawling city in the country behind New York.  The city has risen from the ashes of the meltdown of the industrial economy to become a major jobs and population center in the Northeast.  Due to the city’s land constraints, all of this growth has occurred as infill development.  Nearly all the housing is multi-unit; only 8% of the city’s housing units are in free standing, single family houses.  Like New York, Jersey City is so far along on so many sustainability indices because it has to be.  The city’s growth trajectory is dependent on the same formula: dense, mixed used development and a heavy reliance on public transit.

Officials in cities across the country are eagerly seeking out solutions for reducing carbon emissions, and engaged in endless debate about the various alternatives.  That's too bad.  The answers already exist in New York and Jersey City, if only they would bother to look.

Photo credit: Ellen Blankenship