need to be convinced that an investment will lead to stronger long-term resale values.
For developers, building high-quality affordable housing only makes financial sense if there is an immediate return on investment. This starts by increasing the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)—the federal subsidiary that finances affordable housing, and is what has propelled many affordable housing developments around the United States. The problem with the LIHTC is that its tax credit is too low to allow developers to create high-quality affordable housing and still make a profit. Even if the architectural and design costs of affordable housing are less than those of traditional housing, the core costs are the same: builders pour foundations, frame homes, wire electricity, and lay pipes for heating, bathrooms, and kitchens the same way. Those costs cannot be avoided.
Unless there is private financing or the developer gets the land for free (donated by the municipality, underwritten by a foundation, or otherwise financed), building affordable housing is bad business. The market doesn’t justify building in low-income neighborhoods. But we can’t leave things as they are. Beyond the environmental impact of low-quality materials, low-quality housing developments pose threats to human health and the human condition. According to an article in the US National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, “Poor housing conditions are associated with a wide range of health conditions, including respiratory infections, asthma, lead poisoning, injuries, and mental health [problems].”11 And they have a clear impact on the human condition. Tenement-style housing developments are packed with folks who haven’t been able to escape the yoke of poverty, and this is often passed from generation to generation.12 Residents need to be safe and have the sense of self-worth that living in decent housing conditions can bring. The next generation of housing needs to incorporate green spaces to help lift the spirits and transform the futures of residents. This will help break the cycle of poverty and offer tremendous benefits to human health and the economy.
Mobility Infrastructure
A chief goal of sustainable urban development is the strategic design and redesign of mobility infrastructure. Fixing existing infrastructure is multilayered. The twentieth-century trend toward motorization had profound positive implications on the development of cities; but for all the good that has come from Eisenhower-era interstate highways, they’ve also had negative consequences, such as surrounding cities in a way that cuts off access to waterfronts, parks, and natural spaces. State and county transportation authorities, major transportation companies, and city leaders should work together to reopen access to these areas and restore them using next-generation ecological design and modern engineering.
An Outdoor City’s design pays careful attention to its mobility plan. It maintains roads and highways and offers benefits to ride sharers who help decrease the number of vehicles on the road. It also encourages public transportation and other modes of transit that are more environmentally friendly than private cars. In an Outdoor City, there are transit centers that are municipal hubs, offering transportation to schools, stores, medical facilities, places of worship, office buildings, walking routes, and parks. These are essentially regional urban ecosystems, and can even house retail spaces and restaurants. A well-designed municipal hub grows a region’s economy, improves the quality of life of its residents, makes it more visitor friendly, and significantly lowers the city’s carbon footprint.
An example of a forward-thinking approach to municipal hubs is being used in the planning of one in and around Copenhagen, Denmark. The ten municipalities there are working with the Danish design firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) on a project called LOOP City, which would create a light rail system that extends around the entirety of Greater Copenhagen. The LOOP City light rail would have twenty-eight stops and provide the transportation infrastructure necessary for land outside the city to be more accessible and urbanization to be able to expand. BIG estimates that LOOP City will make enough land accessible that housing for 325,000 people and 280,000 workspaces can be built.13 According to BIG, “The infrastructure could become the base for a new sustainable ring of development around Copenhagen, and an artery of true urbanity pumping life into the heart of the suburbs.”14 They hope to have the light rail operational by 2024, and expect it to support the sustainable growth of the region for the next fifty years.
LOOP City is also planned to be cutting-edge in its green practices. In an article in eVolo magazine, Dennis Lynch wrote:
Perhaps more important to the overall growth of one of the world’s greenest cities is the opportunity the LOOP City concept provides for the implementation and integration of sustainable technologies that until now have not been employed on such a massive scale or in such close concert with one another. BIG incorporates into the LOOP City technologies from pneumatic waste collection pipe systems to integrated bike infrastructure to promote health and sustainability.15
In moving into a future of better transportation infrastructure, it’s also important to make sure the infrastructure can withstand extreme weather. With ever-increasing environmental threats, transportation infrastructure must be able to withstand all forms of potential natural disasters, and should offer spaces for people to be protected from the elements if need be. Alex Karner, an assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech, told me, “Creating refuges for commuters, such as heated bus shelters or cooling stations, will be crucial, as will shelters in areas with more spread-out populations.”
The Human-Powered Mobility Network
A human-powered mobility network refers to the infrastructure that supports human-powered transportation—activities such as walking, running, cycling, and skating. In an Outdoor City, a human-powered mobility network offers walking, running, and skating paths, bike lanes, and other locations for human-powered mobility.
A well-constructed human-powered mobility network is safe, well lit (ideally through solar power), and capable of withstanding extreme weather. In an Outdoor City, it is an attractive option to replace other modes of day-to-day transportation. People might choose to walk or bike to a destination to get sunshine and exercise, or because traditional transit is shut down, malfunctioning, or experiencing delays. They also might use it for first- and last-mile connections, so they don’t have to switch to another form of transportation. To encourage this, entrances to walking paths and bike lanes need to be near transit hubs, easily and safely accessible.
A human-powered mobility network supports exercise and recreation, and has multiple environmental benefits. The most obvious one is that human-powered transportation (walking, cycling, skating, skateboarding, riding a scooter, etc.) avoids the pollutants cars release. According to an article in Sciencing:
Car pollutants cause immediate and long-term effects on the environment. Car exhausts emit a wide range of gases and solid matter, causing global warming, acid rain, and harming the environment and human health. Engine noise and fuel spills also cause pollution. Cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are the single largest contributor to air pollution in the United States.16
In an article for World Watch magazine, Gary Gardner wrote about the CO₂ savings that can come from cycling instead of driving, writing: “A bicycle commuter who rides four miles to work, five days a week, avoids 2,000 miles of driving and (in the United States) about 2,000 pounds of CO₂ emissions, each year. This amounts to nearly a 5-percent reduction in the average American’s carbon footprint.”17
An estimated 80 to 90 percent of a car’s environmental impact results from its fuel consumption and emissions, which cause pollution and the greenhouse gases that are a leading cause of global warming.18 There are also less-talked-about environmental impacts from automobile manufacturing and disposal. According to a National Geographic article:
Automotive production leaves a giant footprint because materials like steel, rubber, glass, plastics, paints, and many more must be created before a new ride is ready to roll. Similarly, the end of a car’s life doesn’t mark
