American - Writer | 1968 -
If we're talking about transportation, the best thing a city can do is densify as quickly as it can. That needs to be said every time this issue comes up, because it's the only universal strategy that works.
Alex Steffen
TimeBestCityStrategyTalkingUp
It is very possible to have lives that are just as prosperous, and nicer, that use 5 percent of the fossil fuels and virgin materials we do now. But if we're living anything like the average McMansion-ite, SUV-driving suburbanites, there's simply no way that can be powered in a climate-friendly way.
NowLivingWayPossibleAnything
There's no law of physics that says we have to be an unsustainable society - in fact, quite the opposite. The planet's ready to work with us if we're ready to think differently, but we do have to make that jump and start to do things in new ways.
WorkLawSocietyStartThinkReady
I think there's a gigantic generation gap in terms of how people understand the Internet and how much they think technology is an important factor in social change.
ChangeTechnologyPeopleThink
When the Internet really first started to hit, people felt this would be the death blow: after suburbs and long commutes and television and the death of the family dinner, this would be the last straw that would totally break society.
FamilyDeathPeopleDinnerSociety
If mass media, social isolation in the suburbs, alienating workplaces and long car commutes create a bunker mentality, the Internet does the opposite.
CarIsolationInternetMediaLong
One of the most unfortunate side effects of the urban activism of the '60s and '70s is the belief that development is wrong and that fighting it makes you an environmentalist.
FightingYouWrongDevelopmentSide
In almost all city governments in America, the small group of people who don't want change are able to block change.
ChangePeopleCitySmallAmerica
The biggest thing growing cities need to do is minimize barriers to development so that as long as someone is doing good urbanism, they can get permitted quickly and get building quickly.
GoodBuildingSomeoneDoingLong
Cities are responsible for the vast majority of the creation of the economy. They're also places into which we pour the vast majority of resources, the vast majority of energy and the places where a huge percentage of the decisions about how systems are built and how products designed, etc., happen.
EnergyDecisionsCreationResponsible
Carbon zero simply means that the emissions you are releasing either are zero or balance out to zero.
BalanceYouOutZeroMeansEither
For carbon-neutral cities, there are things worth talking about in how our consumption patterns can change - sharing goods, etc. - but those are a fraction of the impacts of transportation and building energy use. If we need to choose priority actions, the most important things are to densify, provide transit, and green the buildings.
ChangeGreenBuildingEnergyTalking
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Alex Steffen quotes