High density living in Copenhagen brings many benefits

In early May, over 600 Calgarians participated in 22 Jane’s Walks — neighbourhood tours led by citizens — honouring the legacy of urban planning legend Jane Jacobs. Her 1961 book Death and Life of Great American Cities challenged the conventional wisdom that had for at least a decade been remaking North American cities for cars. Jacobs and other community activists took on Robert Moses, then the most powerful urban planner in North America, and saved what is today one of the most celebrated urban neighbourhoods in the world — Greenwich Village, N.Y. Jacobs went on to bring her community action approach to Toronto where she inspired Torontonians to similarly reclaim their city’s most precious neighbourhoods. Density was one of the key ingredients in Jacobs’s recipe for success.

Fast forward to 2011 and another New Yorker is even more emphatic about density. In his controversial 2008 bestseller Green Metropolis, New York Times journalist David Owen argues passionately that density is the key ingredient to sustainability. Owen points out that in Manhattan, the nation’s densest residential district, residents drive, consume and pollute less than most Americans, resulting in a 30 per cent smaller ecological footprint.

Not only is high-density living greener, it’s healthier. Public health research shows that denser urban environments are safer and encourage healthy living. People can walk to the grocery store and kids can bicycle safely to school.

At home, Calgary policy makers have embraced density for another reason: expansive, auto-oriented cities are expensive. Becoming denser would improve transit service, reduce car ownership costs and create a more walkable city, all for half of the cost of doing suburbs-as-usual. Over the next 60 years this would save taxpayers about $11 billion in capital costs and another $130 million annually in maintenance. In 2009, taxes paid to subsidize urban sprawl added about $115 to the average property tax assessment.

But how dense is dense enough? In cities around the world, there are huge variations and cultural norms. A new immigrant from Manila, for example, might find the lack of people on the streets of Calgary kind of scary. Mumbai, India is the densest city in the world at 30,000 people per square kilometre. But those numbers are not the average Calgarian’s cup of tea. So what about some of the most liveable cities in the world? Barcelona (4,850), Paris (3,550), San Francisco (2,350), Copenhagen (1,850). In contrast, Calgary’s density is 1,250 people per square kilometre.

On a cautionary note, Danish sustainability expert Jan Gehl reminded us during a recent visit to Calgary, that density alone does not make a city liveable, safe, sustainable or healthy. If density is not paired with better transit, quality public space and judicious approval of high-rise development, then there is little to gain except lower taxes. Gehl implored the packed house at the Central Library theatre to focus on the human scale by creating quality social spaces that encourage people to gather and linger.

In his most recent book Cities for People, Gehl is emphatic that “tall buildings and poor public spaces are not a recipe for lively cities.” He counters Owen’s hyper-dense Manhattan, pointing out that Jacobs’s Greenwich Village and the old urban quarters of Paris, Barcelona and Copenhagen are great examples of quality, compact urban neighbourhoods of four- to six-storey residential blocks.

Not to oversimplify, but in the end it comes down to whether we choose to build our cities for cars or for people. Our roads, shopping malls, suburban homes, schools and hospitals are all super-sized for the automobile. Fringe suburbs, no matter how many units per acre, will never achieve one of the most attractive density benefits — reduced dependence on the automobile, and its attendant pollution, noise and congestion.

In Expansive Discourses, local historian Max Foran identifies the early 1950s as the period when land developers arrived on the scene and city administration abdicated its responsibility to shape the city to the developers. They arrived just in time to ride the wave of a perfect storm of post-war economic expansion, the baby boom, Alberta’s oil bonanza, easy mortgage credit and the selling of automobile-driven residential urban sprawl across North America. The business model became entrenched, and to this day has proven very profitable for a handful of land developers.

Looking out from McHugh Bluff, above Sunnyside, on a cool spring day, Jacobs’ enthusiasts had a bird’s-eye view of just about every era of Calgary’s growth — from downtown to suburbia on Signal Hill, but the edge of the city was beyond view.

Density, what is it good for? Tax savings, more walkable communities, more amenities in communities, a new school, more kids in the playground around the corner, more coffee shops, restaurants and health clinics — all within walking distance. We say, Bring it on!

Next column: School bus fees and urban sprawl

Geoff Ghitter teaches urban studies at the University of Calgary and his blog is geeessgee.blogspot.com. Noel Keough is an assistant professor in the faculty of environmental design at the university, and is co-founder of Sustainable Calgary Society. He can be reached at nkeough@ucalgary.ca.