This paper examines the energy use patterns in transport, and how they have changed over the last two decades. The paper establishes the links between urban form and energy consumption in the transport sector. This has formed the basis of a series of major research projects in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The analysis focuses on physical, social, and economic factors. All these factors seem important in determining energy use levels in transport. It is concluded that although energy efficiency in all forms of transport is increasing, this is more than outweighed by the growth in traffic. Energy use in transport is likely to continue to increase. It will be difficult to meet the emission targets set at the 1992 Rio Summit. The tendency to live at lower densities, to value open space and a higher quality of life, to commute long distances, to establish complex activity patterns, all mean that it is very difficult to change these trends. As cities themselves become more dispersed and looser agglomerations, the prime concern of planners should be to make cities more attractive places in which to live. That is the only way to remain the city in the next century. Transport inefficiency may be one of the costs of achieving that objective. For the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD 867839.

Energy, quality of life and the environment: the role of transport

Rapid expansion of settlements and related infrastructures is a global trend that comes with severe environmental, economic, and social costs. Steering urbanization toward well-balanced compactness is thus acknowledged as an important strategic orientation in UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG-11) via the SDG-indicator “Ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate.” The EU’s simultaneous commitment to being “a frontrunner in implementing […] the SDGs” and to striving for “no net land take until 2050” calls for relating the concepts of land consumption and land take to each other. Drawing on an EU-centred questionnaire study, a focus group and a literature review, we scrutinize definitions of land consumption and land take, seeking to show how they are interrelated, and questioning the comparability of respective indicators. We argue that conceptual clarifications and a bridging of the two notions are much needed, and that the precision required for definitions and applications is context-dependent. While approximate understandings may suffice for general communication and dissemination objectives, accurate and consistent interpretations of the discussed concepts seem indispensable for monitoring and reporting purposes. We propose ways of addressing existing ambiguities and suggest prioritizing the term land take in the EU context. Thereby, we aim to enhance conceptual clarity around land consumption and land take—a precondition for solidly informing respective policies and decisions.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8269/pdf

Land consumption and land take: Enhancing conceptual clarity for evaluating spatial governance in the EU context

Exploring differentiated impacts of socioeconomic factors and urban forms on city-level CO2 emissions in China: Spatial heterogeneity and varying importance levels

Magnitudes of households’ carbon footprint in Iskandar Malaysia: Policy implications for sustainable development

Curbing carbon emissions by restricting economic growth could decrease human well-being across the world and especially in developing countries, suggesting that we need to find alternative approaches to reducing carbon emissions. Against this background, this paper investigates the relationship between urban spatial structure and carbon emissions in the Chinese context from 2002 to 2019. Specifically, urban spatial structure of 286 Chinese cities, represented by the two dimensions of polycentricity and compactness, are calculated based on the gridded (1 km × 1 km) LandScan dataset on population, while carbon emissions of these cities are aggregated from the gridded (1 km × 1 km) Open-source Data Inventory for Anthropogenic CO2 (ODIAC) dataset on carbon emissions. The empirical results based on different regression models find that overall (1) more dispersed and less monocentric (i.e., less compact and more polycentric) cities are often associated with lower levels of carbon emissions, ceteris paribus; (2) the impact of polycentricity on carbon emissions could be moderated by the economic development levels of Chinese cities. For cities with gross domestic product of more than 173 billion yuan, a more polycentric spatial structure is usually associated with a higher level of carbon emissions; (3) a city’s urban spatial structure could have positive spatial spillovers on carbon emissions of its neighboring cities.

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Did Polycentric and Compact Structure Reduce Carbon Emissions? A Spatial Panel Data Analysis of 286 Chinese Cities from 2002 to 2019

Different studies have estimated cities’ contribution to total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at between forty and seventy percent. According to the so-called Compact City Approach, high density and centrality should lead to low GHG. This study compares the effect of the urban density and spatial structure (monocentrism, polycentrism, and dispersion) of the main U.S. cities on their greenhouse gas emissions from mobility and housing. The estimated models include control variables in order to improve the statistical adjustment, these variables are grouped into three categories: basic controls as temperature and Gross Domestic Product (GDP); historical-demographic controls since 1900; and geographic-urban planning controls. The results detect an environmentally positive effect, albeit a moderate one, associated with monocentric and polycentric spatial structures as compared to dispersed structures. Within the tradition of urban planning, these results can be used as an argument to stop the dispersed decentralization of cities. However, the efficacy of some policies encouraging density should be accompanied by specific policies which increase the energy efficiency of housing and promote the use of public transport.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/389/pdf

Andrés Dominguez

Papers

The Impact of Urban Form and Spatial Structure on per Capita Carbon Footprint in U.S. Larger Metropolitan Areas