Cities as carbon-reduction machines

“It may be useful to think of cities as great carbon-reduction machines,” Armando Carbonell told a Lincoln Institute of Land Policy symposium Nov. 1. Carbonell, chair of the Department of Planning and Urban Form at the Institute, said, “We’ve got to fix the cars, but we’ve also got to address VMT [vehicle miles traveled] growth, and that is done by providing environments where one can walk or take transit.” The Institute, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, convened 30 big-city planners in November to share best practices in climate action plans.