Transport and Neighborhoods

By Hank Dittmar Black

Dog Publishing, 2008, 80 pp., $12.50

Nations worldwide are setting ambitious targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases in response to dire scientific warnings of global warming’s consequences. Few if any leaders know how to meet those targets. The easiest approach is to have faith in technological breakthroughs.

As stated in the introduction to Transport and Neighborhoods by architect and sustainability expert Bill Gething: “Of course it is possible that a technological magic bullet might emerge that would enable us to carry on exactly as we are. To rely on this would not only demonstrate an excessive faith in technology but also miss the opportunity to review the way we organize our lives to see if the challenge suggests ways to improve our quality of life without significantly reducing economic prosperity.”

Author Hank Dittmar, who is a leader in Britain and the US in New Urbanism and transit-oriented development, does not place his faith in new technology. Instead, he imagines how we can improve current technologies and adopt lifestyle changes to meet London’s ambitious 60 percent CO2 reduction target by 2025.

As chief executive of the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment in London and former chair of the board of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Chicago, Dittmar has an unusual understanding of policy and implementation of smart growth transportation reform. He sees problems with the intellectual foundations for achieving reform. “It is clear that we are still waiting for the fundamental shift in transportation thinking that is necessary to take us toward our vision for 2025.”

Dittmar lays out the case for reform in convincing fashion, but many of the academics and economists who have written papers to guide British officials have a blind spot when it comes to patterns of development and how they affect transportation and the use of fossil fuels. Dittmar reviews these papers in his book. One researcher says “it’s beyond the scope of the study,” and another contends that the “evidence on the link between land form and emissions is complex and contested.” Dittmar shows that the link is clear-cut. Most of the papers are written by people with the title “Sir,” which lends them a gravitas lacking in policy papers on this side of the pond. Nevertheless, they are biased towards the status quo, says Dittmar.

Dittmar paints a picture of what life might be like if aggressive CO2 reduction targets are met in 2025. “Many of the changes feared in 2008 ended up adding to our quality of life here in the UK,” he says, in a section written from the point of view of someone in 2025. “And in fact we eat better, are healthier, and have just as many choices as those turn of the century people: they are just different choices.” He reviews the current situation — not all bad: demand for public transport is rising and New Urbanism’s ideas are gaining influence. He then identifies large gaps in current thinking preventing the right policies from being put in place. He outlines the policies, which boil down to this: Government must offer people strong incentives to do the right thing.

Common sense takes back seat
“Common sense would dictate dramatic improvements to the overtaxed networks for rail, public transport and cycling funded from road pricing or carbon taxes, yet common sense is sacrificed on the altar of cost-benefit analysis and fear of driver backlash,” he writes.
He also suggests — more drastically — banning new housing that is “not within 800 meters of public transport and within 800 meters of a shop. New communities or ecotowns must be located at major public transport hubs, and related to regional employment concentrations in a conurbation, and built around the concept of walkable neighborhoods.”

Dittmar provides a detailed case study of how planning could take place to create the kind of transportation-planning link that he says is necessary. The case he examines is the charrette for Warthamstow, an outer London town center, which involved both British and American experts — the latter were the Center for Neighborhood Technologies and Seth Harry Associates. The Prince’s Foundation, which led the effort, and Alan Baxter Associates and Space Syntax, both of London, were also involved.

From an American perspective, Dittmar’s book is scary in that the Brits are a long way from achieving the kind of intellectual consensus that will allow these reforms to move forward at the necessary pace. Yet they are clearly much further along than the US is. British smart growth proponents have, as advocates, a prince and his representatives. The ideas are at least being considered — if misunderstood — at high levels. In the US, it seems, the discussion has barely begun.