People underestimate just how vital increasing America's population density is for any kind of meaningful environmental improvement. Whether it's drastically reducing emissions, allowing for more relatively undisturbed wilderness, reducing per-person water consumption, or just about any environmental concern, population density moves the needle more than anything.
@adamgurri High population density advocates never factor in the impact of higher real estate and infrastructure costs in their utopian schemes. Construction costs here in Seattle have more than doubled over the last 10 years.
@adamgurri What really matters, of course, is urban density, unless you think it's great idea to build in range, crop, or forest land to increase population density for environmental reasons. That's why I picked a city like Seattle. Try any other west coast city and you'll get the same results. Here's LA
@twitskeptic Yes, that is the point. America overall is not urban enough.
@adamgurri Right. But my point is advocates oversimplify by leaving out the second order costs of changing the density of existing cities - e.g. gentrification, less affordable housing, higher taxes to support infrastructure improvements, construction disruption, increased costs for existing residents etc.
@twitskeptic Are you aware that there is more to America than Seattle? :) Seattle has over 3k people per square kilometer. But America as a whole has only 36 people per square kilometer. Meanwhile, Germany has 240 people per square kilometer; obviously Berlin is denser than that! But we needn't all become Seattle to move closer to Germany overall.