Compact Cities - Teoria e História da Cidade - Home

Harry W.Richardson, Chang-Hee Christine Bae and Murtaza Hatim Baxamusa
A common argument is that developing country cities are much more
sustainable than developed country cities because material consumption per
capita levels are much lower (on average, perhaps 95 per cent lower); hence, to
deploy the fashionable term, the ‘ecological footprint’ of developing country
cities is much smaller. As Satterthwaite (1997, p.1677) points out: ‘Low-income
urban citizens are models of “sustainable consumption” in that they use very few
non-renewable resources and generate very little waste. They are also among the
most assiduous collectors and users of recycled or reclaimed materials.’ The
problem is that this behaviour probably has little to do with ‘compactness’ which
may contribute little to lower levels of consumption, with the possible exception
of transportation services (which explains the dominance of sustainable
transportation in sustainable cities discussions). Instead, as suggested above,
moderate consumption reflects low incomes; the urban rich in developing
countries consume as much as, if not more than, those in developed countries as
they ape their lifestyles.
Lessons and inferences
Given the strong promotion by many in the planning profession of compact city
strategies in developed countries, and given the evidence that shows that
developing country cities are more compact, an obvious question is whether
developed countries have anything to learn from city compactness in developing
countries. The short answer is probably not very much. For example, the
transportation systems of developing countries (e.g. high public transit use)
cannot be replicated in developed countries because income determines
automobile ownership and (for the most part) automobile ownership determines
low public transit use. In any event, cities in developing countries tend to have
higher levels of traffic congestion (reflecting inadequate highway capacity,
accelerating automobile ownership growth rates, mixed road uses and poor, and
often non-existent, traffic management). Of course, a perverse prescription would
be to argue in favour of creating developing country levels of congestion in
developed countries (and there are a few examples in the United States of
converting four-lane highways into two lanes) in an effort to make public transit
trip times competitive with automobile travel, but the welfare effects of such steps
would be devastating.
The compactness of cities in developing countries is the product less of strict
land use planning than its absence, so the planning lessons are negligible.
Compactness in developing country cities (especially in peripheral squatter
settlements or central city slums) is frequently associated with high levels of
environmental degradation (e.g. pressures on inadequate water supply, sanitation
and solid waste management systems). Even if there is a case for densification in
developed countries, it is based on relatively marginal additions to density via
smaller lots for single family homes or more emphasis on condominium and
townhouse development, rather than on attempts to replicate developing country
central city densities.
34