Category: Land Issues

Smart Growth and Livability: The Road to More Intense Air Pollution and Traffic Congestion

Population Density and Air Pollution: For years, regional transportation plans, public officials, and urban planners have been seeking to densify urban areas, using strategies referred to as “smart growth” or “livability.” They have claimed that densifying urban areas would lead to lower levels of air pollution, principally because it is believed to reduce travel by car. In fact, however, EPA data show that higher population densities are strongly associated with higher levels of automobile travel and more concentrated air pollution emissions.

This is illustrated by county-level data for nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions, which is an important contributor to ozone formation. This analysis includes the more than 425 counties in the nation’s major metropolitan areas (those with more than 1 million in population).

Seven of the 10 counties with the highest NOx emissions concentration (annual tons per square mile) in major metropolitan areas are also among the top 10 in population density (2008). New York County (Manhattan) has by far the most intense NOx emissions and is also by far the most dense. Manhattan also has the highest concentration of emissions for the other criteria air pollutants, such as carbon monoxide, particulates, and volatile organic compounds (2002 data). New York City’s other three most urban counties (Bronx, Kings, and Queens) are more dense than any county in the nation outside Manhattan, and all are among the top 10 in NOx emission density.

Traffic and Air Pollution: More concentrated traffic also leads to greater traffic congestion and more intense air pollution. The data for traffic concentration is similar to population density.[7] Manhattan has by far the greatest miles of road travel per square mile of any county. Again, seven of the 10 counties with the greatest density of traffic are also among the 10 with the highest population densities. As in the case of NOx emissions, the other three highly urbanized New York City counties are also among the top 10 in the density of motor vehicle travel.

There is a significant increase in the concentration of both NOx emissions and motor vehicle travel in each higher category of population density. For example, the counties with more than 20,000 people per square mile have NOx emission concentrations 14 times those of the average county in these metropolitan areas, and motor vehicle travel is 22 times the average. All of this is consistent with research by the Sierra Club and a model derived from that research by ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability, both strong supporters of densification, show that traffic volumes increase with density.

Public Health: These data strongly indicate that the densification strategies associated with smart growth and livability are likely to worsen the concentration of both NOx emissions and motor vehicle travel. But there is a more important impact. A principal reason for regulating air pollution from highway vehicles is to minimize public health risks. Any public policy that tends to increase air pollution intensities will work against the very purpose of air pollution regulation—better public health. The American Heart Association found that air pollution levels vary significantly in urban areas and that people who live close to highly congested roadways are exposed to greater health risks. The EPA also notes that NOx emissions are higher near busy roadways. The bottom line is that—all things being equal—higher population density, more intense traffic congestion, and higher concentrations of air pollution go together.

All of this could have serious consequences as the EPA expands the strength of its misguided regulations. For example, officials in the Tampa–St. Petersburg area have expressed concern that the metropolitan area will not meet the new standards, and they have proposed densification as a solution, consistent with the misleading conventional wisdom. The reality is that this is likely to make things worse, not better. Officials there and elsewhere need to be aware of how densification worsens air pollution intensity and health risks and actually defeats efforts to meet federal standards.

Growth That Makes Areas Less Livable:
There are myriad difficulties with smart growth and livability policies, including their association with higher housing prices, a higher cost of living, muted economic growth, and decreased mobility and access to jobs in metropolitan areas. As the EPA data show, the densification policies of smart growth and livability also make air pollution worse for people at risk, while increasing traffic congestion.

Additional details will be found at Wendell Cox, ” Population Density, Traffic Density and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) Emission Air Pollution Density in Major Metropolitan Areas of the United States,” http://www.demographia.com/db-countynox.pdf.

This article is adapted from a Heritage Foundation web memo (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/how-smart-growth-and-livability-intensify-air-pollution)

Sep 16, 2011 | 1 comment | by

Earth Day 2011: When Government Environmental Policies Kill People and Destroy the Environment

Throughout the years, the NCPA has chronicled various ways government policies intended to protect the environment have precisely the opposite effect, causing worse environmental  problems than the issues they were intended to prevent or correct.

We’ve documented how Federal land management has created a tinderbox on  National Forests (wiping out forests and killing people)  in the West and harmed wildlife on public lands nationwide.   We’ve pointed out how federal fisheries policies are contributing to the near collapse of the Ocean fisheries.  In addition, I have written concerning how national energy policies on offshore drilling, wind power and ethanol are, causing a variety of environmental and human harms.

Today, however, I want to focus on policies a little closer to home, your home, my home, everyone’s home.  Federal policies aimed and energy and resource efficiency are unfortunately wasting resources and in some instances literally killing people – yet the feds, rather than staying out of our bathrooms and our kitchens want to increase their control over our everyday purchases.

The Department of Energy, in its infinite wisdom, has decided it knows how much energy your refrigerator’s freezer should use in creating ice cubes.  It wants to force a decrease in the amount of energy refrigerators use in making ice.  What’s the harm you say?  First, why should the government tell you how much energy you can use to chill your drinks, if you are willing to pay the power bill, it’s none of their business.  Second, in reality, every time the government raises efficiency standards all manner of unintended negative consequences result – including, often, increased energy use.  When the government forces conservation, it reduces it makes energy cheaper and when energy is cheaper, people use more of it. Increasing auto fuel economy, years of experience show, hasn’t decreased gasoline use since making driver cheaper has encouraged people to drive more.  In addition, corporate average fuel economy standards have resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths on the nation’s highway – fuel efficient cars are, on average, less safe at any speed than larger vehicles.

Increase television and computer energy efficiency and people buy bigger TV’s and computer screens and leave them on or in stand-by mode rather than shutting them off.  In addition, these refrigerators will be much more expensive meaning people will keep their older, less efficient units longer – repairing them rather than replacing them.  The divide between rich and poor even enters into the realm of appliance purchases.

Remember when government decided to regulate our toilet flushes.  At one time, we had water guzzling but effective, long-lasting (no planned obsolescence for good old American made toilets of by-gone years – they last forever) toilets.  The Federal government knew better, it mandated toilets that used less water per flush. These toilets proved often to be messy disasters.  They stopped up and backed up far too often.  Often it took (still takes) multiple flushes to do the job that only took one flush on the old toilets.  Multiple flushes and increased complexity often increased the rate at which the new toilets broke and had to be replaced.  Multiple flushes also meant far less water was saved than expected. People hated the new toilets so much that a thriving black market arose in good-old five-gallon toilets scavenged from trailers and mobile homes scheduled for destruction.   Only government has the hubris to believe they know best how the average American should use the john.

This brings us to the latest government created environmental and human health hazard in pursuit of forced energy consumption.  To many average citizen’s dismay, in 2007 Congress banned the time tested, effective, incandescent light bulb.  Over time, except for certain specialized uses, they were to be phased out and everyone would have to use the, in theory, less energy intensive, longer lasting but much more expensive (in fact) Compact fluorescent lights (CFL’s).  Though a new generation of legislators is attempting to repeal these regulations, it is becoming apparent that much damage has already been done.  In the midst of a recession, employees at incandescent bulb factories were forced – by government decree, mind you —  to  join the ranks of the unemployed as their factories closed and the new CFL factories ramped up production in China.

In addition, recent studies have found what many predicted at the time, the new CFL’s, which rarely last as long as promised, are not being disposed of property and thus mercury, a well-known potential neurotoxin is regularly being released into the environment.  Most curbside recycling programs won’t handle CFL’s.  Users are supposed to take them to “local” (if they exist) hazardous waste facilities for recycling.  Most don’t; instead putting them in with the regular garbage where the bulbs end up in landfills broken releasing their mercury into the soil and water.

Most troubling, if you care at all about human life and safety, these bulbs are proving to be fire hazards.   A recent report by author Edmund Contoski chronicles a number of cases where exploding CFL’s have caused fires, some even resulting in fatalities.

Whatever else one may think of environmental regulation, or regulations in general a prime guiding principle should be a version of the Hippocratic oath “Firstly, do no harm.” The forced CFL conversion is bad for the economy, bad for consumer choice, bad for the environment and now it turns out bad for human health and safety.”  Let’s hope Congress comes to its senses and repeals all of these regulations that are intended to force people to make more energy efficient purchases that just end up killing people.  Peoples’ lives should not be sacrificed on the altar of energy efficiency.

In the end, it’s not just our bedrooms the government should butt out of, it should stay out of our garages and the other rooms in our houses, as well.

Apr 22, 2011 | 3 comments | by

Taxes, Tea Parties and the Environment

The tax bill currently winding its way through the Senate presents the perfect opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate whether they learned anything from the last election and the Tea Party phenomenon.

Whatever one’s stand on the expiring Bush era income tax cuts, there are other provisions in this bill that merit removal.

First, the death tax should be buried, not resurrected.  The super wealthy, those supposedly targeted by the death tax can afford the kind of estate planning necessary to allow them to avoid paying most, if not all estate taxes.  However, this tax kills small businesses and – since I work on environmental issues – is bad for the environment because it leads to the chopping up and down sizing or small private forests.  As detailed in a paper the NCP A wrote a few years ago, many private forest owners are land rich but cash poor, so when their heirs inherit, they have to sell forests that they cherish, and many times, forests that have been in the family for generations, just to pay the taxes.  Forests become tract homes and shopping malls so Uncle Sam can collect a second time on wealth accumulated and taxed previously. 

Second, the GOP should not allow the tax bill to be laden with all sorts of ancillary special interests projects.  The rumor is extension of the tax cuts will be tied, in part, to an extension of all manner of tax credits, grants and outright giveaway’s to renewable energy manufacturers, installers and producers.  This includes tax credits for one of the biggest boondoggles of all – ethanol.  NCPA scholars, including myself, have written on a number of occasions on why tax breaks and forced government payments for ethanol production is bad for the environment and bad for energy security.  Even Al Gore has seen the light on this one and come out against continuing the government’s ethanol program. 

That’s not all, however, under the guise of producing green jobs and funding renewable energy, other grants, subsidies and mandates are extended for wind, solar, geothermal and other less reliable, more expensive energy sources.  These subsidies kill more jobs than they create.  And in a time when people are demanding the Government live within its means (as the last election seemed to indicate they are) and reduce the deficit, these programs should end.  Government should treat all energy sources equally and stop subsidizing all of them.  Then only those sources of energy that can compete in the marketplace will survive.  I trust the decisions of millions of investors and consumers far more than I trust government to decide what energy I should use to heat and light my home or fuel my car.  If it was a good idea, the government wouldn’t have to force us to buy it – after all, this isn’t a public good like national defense.

Dec 13, 2010 | 2 comments | by
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