Eastern Promenade greenway, Portland, ME - Photo Nan Cummings
Even as we were posting yesterday on the importance of cities and city parks in climate protection, Kaid Benfield was writing, ”Hey, Copenhagen: climate protection must include smart, walkable neighborhoods” over on NRDC’s Switchboard blog. Benfield is a cogent writer on smart growth matters, and he links through to a post from the Copenhagen summit that also deals with the climate benefits of compact cities.
Much of the focus in these posts is on energy saved from transportation and home use. I would add that to secure these benefits and attract people to city living, we will need greenways to support non-motorized transportation and parks to serve as communal backyards for more densely settled communities.
As the planet’s environmental movers and shakers convene to hammer out some form of agreement for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, however inadequate it is likely to be, at least they are lucky to be in one of the most walkable cities in the world. Copenhagen is a veritable model of human-scaled urbanism, with incredibly pleasant streets and neighborhoods where, it seems, almost no one needs a car to get around. If US metro regions, which as we know tend to be spread out and car-dependent, not to mention carbon-intensive, could pick up a few lessons from the Danish capital, we could forge a substantial reduction in our carbon footprint.
Tags: City Parks, climate
