CNU-Carol Coletta and Smart Cities

Carole Coletta is the Executive Director of CEO for Cities. CEO’s for Cities does some of the most interesting research on the status of cities, their natural advantages, and strategic approaches to growth and development. Check out her speeches and radio show, Smart City. She makes a compelling case for cities every time and every place she appears.

She focused on the natural advantages of cities created by density and mixed-use - producing walkable, urbane environments. In this era of climate change and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she talked about the new urban, green advantage.

"For first time in history urban-ness is its own reward."

Density and mixed use create walkable environments that result in the natural advantages of cities.

• Variety
• Convenience
• Discovery-exposure to more opportunities
• Opportunity-Access to jobs, education and smart people

Putting more people in cars and obsessing about traffic flow is bad for the environment, but destroys the natural advantage of the city.

Is traffic flow essential to smart cities? New York City finally realized the answer is "no" and has begun a radical effort to recapture its streets for people. (Read the NYTimes articles about Times Square and car free streets.)

Walking is the critical component of a smart city!

"Our problem is that we keep screwing it up. We keep undermining the city’s natural advantage by making choices that undermine and, at times, destroy density and mixed use thereby destroying walkability."

Yet, we know that all the talented young people every city is seeking to attract place a premium on walkability and a diverse, engaging urban environment. Most prefer to live in core cities and most prefer to live in close proximity to the downtown.

CEO’s for Cities found if each of the top 50 metros could achieve:

• An increase of in talented young people living in their city;
• A decrease of 1 mile per day (mpd) in vehicle miles traveled (vmt); and,
• A 1% decrease in poverty.

That would translate into a $166 billion annual dividend.

She then focused on the green dividend. As fuel prices go up, the value of green dividend increases. She based her estimates on $ .50 per mile as total cost to drive at today’s prices. That is worth $29 billion annually in the top 50 metros for every 1 mpd of vmt reduction. Just keep multiplying out the dividend for every further 1 mpd reduction of vmt.

Metropolitan areas that drive less spend less on transportation. Compact urban form allows people to drive less and spend less of their income on transportation. That means they have more disposable income to spend on housing, entertainment, education or just save.

Walk Score data: Relationship between a property and its walk score and its impact on value. The higher the walk score is; the higher the value of the home.

"Once you see the data that establishes this relationship, it makes no sense for any car dependent development to get approval."