The material impact of a residential development goes far beyond the houses being built. Infrastructure is an underestimated factor in this regard, argues Ronald Rovers. That's why we need to densify, but that's not enough either.
The road, that's what we need to talk about. A number of excellent studies on urban sustainability were recently published, which Cabinet Jetten has yet to read. These show that it matters quite a bit how you design a neighborhood with respect to infrastructure. Quite logical of course, a villa district needs more roads and infra than a compact expansion district.
But it's not just the road "length. I myself once did rough calculations on the infrastructure for a low-rise new housing development. I then worked out that the material use for a house per m2 is comparable to that for a road per m2 (in volume and embodied energy). Moreover, about 1 m2 of road per m2 of dwelling was needed. Where there is a house, there is a road, and thus double the impact!
This makes the road a very important part of the plan, even more so in relation to the rest of the infrastructure, such as quantity pipes sewerage, mobility. On that, the reports give interesting insights.
This shows that it's even more important, regardless of the property or road material, to consider everything one scale higher: it's about where and how build!
First of all, we need to densify on existing sites, The building density in the Netherlands is incredibly low, In the case of Eindhoven, for example, you can't actually even speak of a city, with 2800 houses per km2. A little city has double that, although in the Netherlands that only applies to The Hague. Paris even has eight times as much housing. Not that we should build towers, on the contrary, Four to five layers is a material and density optimum. In case of fire and power outages, you can then also get by reasonably well.
Still, we may not make it through compaction alone. And now don't start thinking about entirely new cities or neighborhoods a la Vinex, or Jetten's ten large-scale sites. That would be outrageous, knowing what that will cost in materials and energy at a time when we can afford little more. The CO2 budget for building is (virtually) depleted.
No, think practically, of places where there are already roads! There is still an awful lot of unused road in the landscape: internal roads, provincial roads, connecting roads. Building along those saves an enormous amount of infrastructure impact, and you avoid wasting time on road planning. Another advantage is that pollution by electric transport decreases, and moreover, public transport is already present on these roads, often via neighborhood buses connecting villages and neighborhoods.
But along it then don't start building single-family houses, but apartments of up to three high. Then you have the social activities and liveliness at the front, and greenery, nature and open views at the back!
Where there's a road, there's a construction site, so to speak. It takes some getting used to, but I knew it all along: the Belgians had it right all along....
Ronald Rovers
Ronald Rovers is an ex-professor, physical fundamentalist and future thinker. He is on a quest for the ultimate sustainable physical balance on earth, without fossil of course. Productive Land he sees as our real capital, for food, energy, water and materials. That requires that we live 'vegetarian', and thus also build vegetarian. In that light, he explores the future of construction here.
