Stop, Drop and Roll

22 May 2007 | Alameda Community Development Forum | John Knox White

As the discussion of development in Alameda rages on, the Philadelphia Inquirer has a great article on Global Warming and future development. As an island city that will bear a significant brunt of Global Climate Change if even the moderate predictions come true, Alameda should be leading the way, not burying its head in the sand.

A 2002 peer-reviewed study by John Holtzclaw and other researchers examined odometer readings from annual government-run vehicle emissions tests to compare driving patterns across metro Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It showed that miles driven by an average household dropped between 32 percent and 43 percent as the density of neighborhoods doubled.

In other words, in moving from a typical exurban neighborhood with three units per acre to a neighborhood like Manayunk - where densities are at least 24 to the acre - a household would expect to reduce its driving to about 32 percent what it formerly was. A move to the tight-knit heart of Haverford or downtown Ambler would yield about a 50 percent reduction.

What the article doesn’t mention is that Holtzclaw’s research follows a lot of other research that comes to the same conclusion. Holtzclaw was the first to do it look at neighborhoods, rather than large metro areas.

But back to the article. Ambler is a real small town, 6,200 people. Anyone arguing that Alameda is a small town and we can’t have the density of “big cities” isn’t paying attention to the discussion. No one is arguing for manhattan-style density, they are suggesting that varying the density could be a good thing. (quick fact check, many areas of Brooklyn and Queens have Alameda-like areas, so “New York density” isn’t quite the disparaging remark some might want it to be).

The discussion is….wait for it…nuanced.
The article talks about 70 million new dwellings being built in the next 30 years. The Bay Area will increase by 2 million people in that time (about 1 million households).

We can ban new housing from Alameda and continue to sprawl regionally, Los Angeles-like, thereby sitting back ignoring a real and growing threat to our town. Or we can start making decisions that tackle the large issues in front of us and look at development in Alameda from a preservation POV.