Urb­an­isa­tion — part of the solu­tion, not the prob­lem

Michael Keith’s piece on urb­an­isa­tion’s role in the cli­mate crisis sheds light on a crit­ical issue (Janu­ary 26). However, when look­ing bey­ond the cli­mate crisis to con­sider the broader crisis in nature, urb­an­isa­tion should be seen as part of a solu­tion rather than solely a prob­lem.

Urban areas, char­ac­ter­ised by their hous­ing dens­ity, enjoy bet­ter util­isa­tion of energy and mater­i­als, mean­ing urb­an­isa­tion can reduce a coun­try’s over­all envir­on­mental foot­print. The dens­ity of urban areas is also essen­tial for effect­ively imple­ment­ing innov­at­ive new tech­no­lo­gies vital to both cli­mate and nature trans­itions, such as dis­trict heat­ing net­works.

An urban sci­ence advis­ory sys­tem that takes into account both cli­mate and nature con­sid­er­a­tions is a wel­come pro­posal. However, it is imper­at­ive that this body recog­nises that urb­an­isa­tion can be seen as a solu­tion rather than a prob­lem in address­ing the mul­tiple crises we face. By lever­aging the effi­ciency bene­fits of urb­an­isa­tion, we can use it as an oppor­tun­ity for pos­it­ive trans­form­a­tion.

Carina Man­i­tius
Eco­nom­ist, Oxford Eco­nom­ics, Lon­don SW1, UK