by Robert Steuteville

As new urbanists struggle to find ways to publicize the environmental advantages of walkable land-use patterns, a planning technology is taking shape that could make that case on a wider scale.

Eliot Allen of Criterion Planners in Portland, Oregon, calls the idea "Cool Spots," a catchy name with a double meaning -- it refers to compact, transit-oriented nodes that are both trendy and friendly to the climate.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is working with Allen to refine Cool Spots and is looking to complete a paper in 2008 that will bring the idea to policy analysts, environmental groups, and government officials, says Kaid Benfield, NRDC senior attorney and director the group’s smart growth program.

Benfield acknowledges that New Urbanism and smart growth have not gotten the recognition they deserve relative to their potential for reducing per capita energy use. "To some extent it is our fault in the environmental community," he says. "We have not recognized and promoted it. Part of the problem is that [benefits from land use changes] are more difficult to quantify than changes in vehicle fleet efficiency."

Yet the research and literature have lately made substantial progress, he says. In the last year, the issue of climate change has become much more prominent nationally, he explains. "Also the land use connection has been made in stronger way," especially with the recent publication of Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, published by ULI, which made a strong case that compact development is on par with fuel efficiency as a tool for cutting carbon dioxide emissions.

Cool Spots could help significantly, because it has the potential to bring scientific rigor to the impact of land use and climate, Benfield says.

Figure 1: A map of transit nodes and pedestrian sheds in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area identifies the Cool Spots for development (see black and dark gray areas).

FOCUSING REGIONAL GROWTH

Cool Spots is a regional planning tool that uses the Transect and pedestrian shed concepts, both of which are crucial to new urbanists. Key transit nodes are mapped in a region (see Figure 1, above), along with pedestrian sheds to nearby destinations such as stores schools and parks (see Figure 2, below). A Cool Spot is identified and divided into Transect zones (Figure 3, below). Form-based coding can then guide development.

Looking more closely at Figure 1 -- a map of potential Cool Spots in the Grand Rapids, Michigan, area -- one can easily see smart growth locations and open spaces that should be protected. The beauty of this system is that such planning can be translated into hard greenhouse gas reduction numbers for any metropolitan area.

"There’s a lot of interest in mayors and other municipal leaders getting on board the climate train," Benfield says. "The more tools we put into their hands the better."

Cool Spots can reduce a neighborhood’s energy use and greenhouse emissions as much as 40 to 50 percent, Allen says. That’s based solely on land use and doesn’t include further reductions from alternative energy, hybrid vehicles, and other changes in technology and lifestyle.

Allen says the following achievements are possible in energy use and production of greenhouse gases:

• The most obvious improvement is a reduction in automobile use. Cool Spots have been shown to reduce driving by up to 75 percent through walkability, proximity, and access to transit.
• A shift to more multifamily buildings can reduce energy use up to 15 percent.
• The use of "district heating and cooling systems," which serve more than one building, can save 15 percent of the energy required for heating and cooling. In suburbia, density is too low to employ such systems, but they’re common in Europe, Allen says. Cool Spots -- ideally mixed-use to spread peak utility demand throughout the day -- would be compact enough to accommodate this technology.
• Compact, mixed-use development reduces the volume of energy lost through transmission lines, since these lines are shorter in development of this kind than in widely dispersed suburban environments. Energy losses can be further reduced through cogeneration and other neighborhood energy generation systems.
• Cool Spots are sited where existing infrastructure, such as sewer pipes, is already in place. Many occupy grayfield sites, such as suburban shopping malls and other commercial developments that are ripe for redevelopment. Reuse of the existing infrastructure cuts down on the "embodied" energy expended to build the infrastructure to begin with.

To map out a Cool Spot, find clusters of destinations near transit nodes (Figure 2 above left), and designate Transect zones (Figure 3 above right). The Cool Spot has a variety of densities, from center to suburban, but all is walkable and the overall climate impact is low.

TRANSPORTATION BEFORE PLANNING?

One criticism made recently on an Internet listserv for urbanists is that Cool Spots puts transportation infrastructure first, and planning second. Many new urbanists -- who are largely planners and urban designers -- believe that planning should come first.

"No methodology should ever be applied blindly," Allen responds. "It is always necessary to tailor a method to site-specific conditions." Perhaps more importantly, he adds, "We in America are entering an era of having to make the best of what we got on the ground. We are not going to see enormous transit investments in metro areas in a way that will fundamentally change the picture we are drawing here. Major rights of way are already delineated and acquired. I would argue that it means prioritizing where you have operational capacity and retrofitting. Find the nodes on a map where you can immediately see the reductions in CO2 emissions that we really need."

Criterion has been using the Cool Spots method for years, Allen says, but without the catchy name and in a highly technical way that did not lend itself to wide use and dissemination. He hopes the collaboration with the NRDC will make it more broadly available.

"My intent is to put the methodology in the public domain," Allen says. "Climate change is too important to be proprietary. To the extent that our firm helps it to happen, so much the better."

Merging the agendas of better land use and greenhouse gas reduction is the "highest priority" of NRDC, Benfield says.

Thanks to New Urban News for permission to reprint this article.
Images within the article courtesy of Criterion Planners.