> Any other questions? George Frantz Yes. How do you propose to implement your two billion dollar plan for Ithaca given the strong likelihood that financial, energy, and material resources will dramatically decrease over the rest of the century?
Jon | | --- On Tue, 8/12/08, Jon Bosak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | | How much do you figure it would cost to change Ithaca from a city | | of about 30,000 covering 11 square miles to one of 55,000 covering | | 3 square miles? | | | | I'd also be interested to know how much CO2 would be generated by | | replacing the existing housing inventory and what you would | | propose to do with the construction waste. | | JonMy rough back of the envelope estimate is somewhere around $2 | billion, of which 80-90 percentwould be mostly in the form of | re-allocated private investment and 10-20 percent in public | investment. Nationwide we are probably talking in terms of a few | trillion $$$, or about half of what state, local and federal | governments have spent to gut our cities and fuel suburban sprawl | over the pastfour decades.I don't know the amount of CO2 that | might be generated over and above that which is going to | begenerated as we continue to sprawl outward. At the very worst | I suspect that it would be a wash.Based on some European Union | data I have, eliminating the need for some 19,000 or so | commutersnow driving into Ithaca each day would reduce CO2 | emissions locally by about 45 tons per day,or 11,250 tons per | year, give or take. There would also be a reduction in streets, | highways, parking lots and rooftops of about two squaremiles with | a commensurate decrease in the amount of urban heat generated and | increase in vegetation.Converting that 2 square miles to food | production could also reduce local greenhouse gas | emissions. Given the growing acceptance of the LEED building | philosophy in this country, I can see where new construction in | the future will be in the form of highly energy efficient homes | incorporatingconcepts such as recycled building materials, | vegetated roofs, ambient lighting, solar and geothermal energy | systems, furtherreducing greenhouse gas emmissions from current | levels. There may or may not be an increase in construction | waste, as the existing housing stock in thesuburbs is so poorly | built that simply maintaining it in place will continue to | generate asubstantial stream of construction waste, as will new | building construction. AS I stated earlier, many older homes in | Ithaca and other cities are already deteriorated to the point | where they haveto be replaced. Moreover as our cities continue | to be abandoned entire neighborhoods are alreadybeing demolished | and landfilled. There is also a growing industry known as the | deconstructionindustry, which specializes in taking down older | buildings carefully and recycling the materialsfor use in new | construction. As the cost of raw materials increases and the | cost of landfillingcontinues to increase I suspect that this new | industry will continue to expand in scope, importancepositive | environmental impact. Any other questions? George Frantz _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
