Green Cities: Urban Growth and the Environment

by Matthew E. Kahn

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What is a green city? What does it mean to say that San Francisco or Vancouver is more ""green"" than Houston or Beijing? When does urban growth lower environmental quality, and when does it yield environmental gains? How can cities deal with the environmental challenges posed by growth? These are the questions Matthew Kahn takes on in this smart and engaging book. Written in a lively, accessible style, Green Cities takes the reader on a tour of the extensive economic literature on the environmental consequences of urban growth. Kahn starts with an exploration of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)—the hypothesis that the relationship between environmental quality and per capita income follows a bell-shaped curve. He then analyzes several critiques of the EKC and discusses the implications of growth in urban population and surface area, as well as income. The concluding chapter addresses the role of cities in promoting climate change and asks how cities in turn are likely to be affected by this trend. As Kahn points out, although economics is known as the ""dismal science,"" economists are often quite optimistic about the relationship between urban development and the environment. In contrast, many ecologists and environmentalists remain wary of the environmental consequences of free-market growth. Rather than try to settle this dispute, this book conveys the excitement of an ongoing debate. Green Cities does not provide easy answers complex dilemmas. It does something more important—it provides the tools readers need to analyze these issues on their own.
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Genres: Cities, Environment, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and to the point, it sometimes reads like an extended blog entry, but it did help clarify some issues about environmental economics that I was confused about.

He convincingly shoots down the "pollution haven" explanation for improved environmental quality in the first world. He shows that more polluting industries didn't necessarily move abroad because the content of US imports has actually gotten more environmentally friendly faster than US exports and manufacturing. The US is a high capital nation so it would make sense that we still have the most polluting industries, even if these are infinitely cleaner than they were 40 years ago. Kahn also shows that cars in the US have gotten about 90% cleaner in just about 10 years, and that even total US carbon dioxide emissions are down from their peak. Still, he highlights the necessity of government regulation in achieving these ends.

Overall a hopeful if sober book on the future of the environment.

[M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in a day on a road trip. A sort of time capsule, I wonder how in the zeitgeist green was in 2006 when the book came out. My favorite chapter was near the end about the environmental cost of urban sprawl.

[Michael Lewyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written guide to a difficult problem. On the one hand, urbanization and affluence lead to less localized pollution, as a more affluent electorate becomes able to afford the costs of regulation, and new technologies limit pollution at bearable costs. Kahn points out that deindustrialization and the reduced pollution that it causes is not limited to the USA.

But Kahn adds that such affluence also increases pollution that spreads across boundaries, such as that caused by greenhouse gases. Because such pollution occurs slowly and is hard to detect, democratic processes have not addressed it well.

Although I occasionally wished Kahn's data sets had been more detailed, he makes his key points skillfully.