Climate and Insurance.org | takefive with David Goldberg

David A. Goldberg is the communications director for Smart Growth America, where he works to help a coalition of national, state and local groups communicate their values and goals on behalf of better planning and development.

He is the author of Choosing Our Community’s Future: A citizen’s guide to getting the most from development, and Rethinking the American Dream, a popular handbook for journalists covering planning issues, as well as numerous articles for magazines, newspapers and journals.

Most recently, Goldberg co-authored the book, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, published online by the Urban Land Institute in September, 2007, with a print release scheduled for January. He also has written guides to planning, development and communications for realtors, housing and transportation advocates, public health officials, foundations and others.

As editorial writer and reporter at The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Goldberg helped to create the Horizon section, a weekly report on the region’s growth and development issues that ran for 8½ years.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University’s journalism school, Goldberg was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University in 2002-03, and has taught journalism at Emory University.

He, his wife and four children remaining at home live in Decatur, GA, where he is a member of the Board of Zoning Appeals.

David Goldberg:
For the last 15 or so years, researchers across the country have been exploring the links between the way we develop our cities, the amount of driving we do, and the effect that the extra miles of driving has on everything from air quality to exercise levels.

Last February, in a talk at a conference on smart growth, lead author Reid Ewing cited much of this research in making the case that the urban form has a significant impact on global warming, and could therefore play a key role in addressing climate change. This prompted Geoff Anderson of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ask Dr. Ewing if he could do a more formal report on the state of knowledge about urban development and climate change, and the potential for better-planned urban development to help protect the climate.

Ewing took up the challenge, ultimately involving the other co-authors, Keith Bartholomew of the University of Utah; Steve Winkelman of the Center for Clean-Air Policy; Don Chen and myself at Smart Growth America; as well as the Urban Land Institute.

Takefive:
The book says the job of reducing CO2 auto emissions should be viewed as a three-legged stool. Can you describe what you mean by that statement?

David Goldberg:
Most of the discussion about reducing carbon from automobiles has focused on fuel efficiency and a potential for lower-carbon fuels, two legs of the “stool”. However, the potential gains from those technological improvements would be overwhelmed by the rapid growth in the sheer number of miles we all drive – the third leg of the stool.

The graphs showing the trend lines in the book are fairly dramatic. They show a 59 percent increase in miles driven between now and 2030. Even the most stringent emissions standards being talked about today fail without a decrease in the growth in “vehicle miles of travel”, to use the transportation planners’ term.

Many policymakers have been reluctant to talk about this because they don’t want to be perceived as calling for punitive measures against drivers. The good news in our book, though, is that the punitive approach is unnecessary.

If you build places where people can accomplish more by spending less time and money on driving, they will take advantage of it. This means people living in walkable neighborhoods in convenient locations, with services and jobs close at hand, will spend a third less time and money on driving than those in automobile-dependent areas, and more in many cases.

Takefive:
Your book advocates for more “compact development.” Please explain what you mean by this term and what you and your colleagues envision for compact developments in the future?

David Goldberg:
Compact development has many of the features of the most cherished neighborhoods from before World War II. A compact neighborhood is built on a walkable scale, so most residents are a five-minute walk from a store, restaurant and other services. Streets connect in a grid so that both motorists and pedestrians have a choice in routes, helping to disperse traffic and accommodate people on foot. In automobile-oriented places, in contrast, all traffic is funneled onto one over-loaded arterial road, which is difficult or impossible to traverse on foot.

Compact development also has a range of housing types in close proximity, so that there might be apartments, condominiums and townhouses mixed in with the commercial area, with the density thinning to single-family houses on the periphery of the neighborhood. Mixed uses, mixed housing types, connected streets and access to transit are all features of compact development.

Takefive:
At one point, you acknowledge in the book that compact developments face an uneven playing field in the future. Can you explain why and tell us what policy initiatives that you and your colleagues believe need to be taken to turn this situation around?

David Goldberg:
Since World War II, conventional zoning and development codes have outlawed the traditional approach to building walkable places. They mandate a strict separation of uses and housing types, and require that everything be spread far apart, with large parking lots and high-speed roads in between.

Many places are changing these rules, but it’s slow going. At the same time, land is cheaper and regulations more lax at the exurban fringe, so developers tend to go there, rather than redevelop the vast swaths of dead and dying commercial strips, or underused land that may be closer to jobs and transit service.

All this is beginning to change because there is a huge and growing demand for conveniently located, walkable neighborhoods. Commutes are too long and traffic too aggravating for many people, and rising gas prices make it all the worse. At the same time, many cities have done a great job of revamping themselves, making the streets safer and adding in great new parks, recreational trails, streetscapes, and appealing, mixed-use neighborhoods. Many of the surging number of empty nesters and the younger couples delaying childbirth are seeing these places and flocking to them.

The big challenge is to change the rules to allow the demand to be met so that home prices in these areas can come down.

Takefive:
Finally, as you may know, insurance professionals have been advocates for stronger building codes around the country and only recently have begun to speak out about the possible need for land-use reforms, particularly in disaster-prone areas. Do you think there is more of a role that the insurance industry could play in this regard, and what might that be?

David Goldberg:
If we are to come to our senses and stop building in places that are prone to flood, fire and other “natural” disasters, and if we are to start building in ways that allow us to do more while emitting less disaster-generating carbon, it will be because key players like the insurance industry insist upon it.

I have done work in the Katrina-affected areas and I have to say that I was astonished that anyone could get insurance and a mortgage in some of these vulnerable areas. I suppose everyone figures the taxpayers will ultimately bail everyone out. I’m not so sure we’ll be able to count on that in the future, as losses mount, storms become more severe, and changing circumstances enhance the vulnerability.