Is Phoenix's goose cooked? The metabolism of cities.

Review of The Very Hungry City: Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economic Fate of Cities, by Austin Troy, Yale University Press, 2012, 384 pp., $28 hardcover

Is Phoenix’s goose cooked? It certainly looks that way, judging by this persuasive book. Austin Troy argues that every city has an “energy metabolism.” A city that has a high metabolism — a need to consume large quantities of energy to function — will be at a serious competitive disadvantage in the years ahead, because as global demand grows, the cost of energy will rise. This should cause some cities to wither while others prosper.

Troy teaches at the University of Vermont, is an expert on urban environmental management, has familiarized himself with new urbanist/smart growth thinking, and writes with great clarity. As a result, The Very Hungry City is a penetrating examination of what’s happening to the availability of oil, natural gas, solar and wind power, and other forms of energy — and what this means for cities.

“Many American cities have metabolisms like those of competitive eaters,” he observes. Their ravenous appetites didn’t matter when energy was cheap, but as prices climb, efficient energy use will prove “ever more critical to cities’ economic well-being and success.”

“Practices like locating corporate headquarters in suburban or exurban areas may become unsustainable,” he predicts. Regions that rely on intensive air-conditioning and extensive automobile travel will suffer. Water shortages will exacerbate the difficulties in parched sections of the Sunbelt.

Troy provides a fascinating account of how water and energy are inextricably linked, suggesting that as years go by, wetter regions will have an advantage. Regions that are relatively compact and served by efficient public transportation will fare well because they consume energy more sparingly.

The world may continue to find new sources of oil and gas, but the technologies involved (such as those used to extract from Canada’s tar sands) are themselves more energy-consuming, which will make future supplies increasingly expensive. This book is full of interesting, independent-minded observations. I will cite just two: Troy deduces that estimates of America’s supposedly nearly 200-year reserve of coal are “almost certainly overblown.” And he cites evidence that LEED buildings use, on average, slightly more energ than non-LEED buildings of the same vintage.

Market forces, by themselves, are unlikely to overcome America’s entrenched patterns of inefficient development. Governments will have to inculcate change, yet many suburbs are devoted to zoning systems that serve their own parochial economic interests, at the expense of metropolitan well-being.

Troy’s thoughtful examination of municipal decision-making leads him to advocate an expanded federal role — pushing regions toward more meaningful planning. This outstanding book is a step toward more energy-efficient communities, which would also, as he points out, be “better places to live.”