Rethinking urbanization
What do food distribution and urban mobility have to do with “green” buildings? Most of the food products consumed in cities are not produced there; the same applies to human mobility.
The phenomenon creates an inefficiency problem embedded not just in the context of urban planning, but in energy consumption. An average person spends more than 90 percent of their time in buildings — moving between homes, offices, grocery stores, schools, restaurants and gyms.
Power grids in most cities operate “vertically”: energy is produced, transmitted and then distributed to downstream users. Pascal Rollet, a renown “green” architect from France, says that there should be “grid modernization,” in which electricity can be utilized more efficiently by end users.
The reason is that buildings with different functions use electricity at different times and their consumption peaks at different times, therefore, there exists a tremendous opportunity to transmit power across buildings.
On a slightly related note, dispersed populations create the problem of mobility efficiency. A person who has to travel a long distance to work causes the production of greenhouse gases, but there is also an externality that has not been given attention and that is the medical costs of anxiety resulting from tedious transportation to and from cities. An obvious solution is to simply let people work from home.
Meanwhile, the global economic climate is already seeing novel methods of working. The Internet of Things, Big Data and cyber are forms of work that have not existed, and can inadvertently transform the urban problem.
According to research, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the levels determined by the Paris agreement, each person can only travel long distances every six years — equivalent to an average of 2000 watts. So, the solution is: travel less or travel close.
Therefore, there should be new ways of vacationing as a way to mitigate climate change from the perspective of individual decisionmaking. Electric vehicles and battery charging stations are among the solutions.
In short, urbanization should be regarded in a broader context, such as medical costs, grid transmission, climate change and the happiness of residents.
Angela Yeh
Taipei
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