Slashdot Mirror
The World's Most Wasteful Megacity
merbs writes: The world's most wasteful megacity is a densely populated, steadily aging, consumerist utopia where we buy, and throw away, a staggering amount of stuff (abstract). Where some faucet, toilet, or pipe, is constantly leaking in our apartments. Where an armada of commerce-beckoning lights are always on. Where a fleet of gas-guzzling cars still clog the roadways. I, along with my twenty million or so neighbors, help New York City use more energy, suck down more water, and spew out more solid waste than any other mega-metropolitan area.
New York is only the most wasteful global megacity because it's full of Americans. The more important point is that New York City is the most environmentally friendly place in the United States, when measured by pollution emitted per capita. (See this list of CO2 emissions by state: New York State, whose population is tightly focused in NYC, has twice the CO2 emissions per capita as the more sprawling development in Florida, and one New Yorker is worth *four* Texans.
To improve its environmental standing, America needs *more* dense urbanized areas like NYC, not less.
Okay, what do you expect? NYC (in one form or another) has been there for FOUR HUNDRED YEARS (the area was first settled in 1624). It's been a massive metropolitan settlement for the better part of the last two hundred.
It's not as if someone went back to 1700 or so and started out with a city planning commission and 2015-level civil engineering technology. So yes, the city's going to be ANYTHING but efficiently run, plumbed, or laid out.
As opposed to London, Paris, and Tokyo, which were designed and built during the last 50 years, and thus are more efficient.
Not to mentioned, that New York is an aged Metropolis. The ones in Europe, were ravaged by Two World Wars so they were rebuilt with more modern technology. The ones in other parts of the world are much newer.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.