 Comment on Reid Ewing and Fang Rong's “The impact of urban form on U.S. residential energy use”John Randolph Housing Policy Debate, 2008, vol. 19, issue 1, 45-52 Abstract: Using a complicated stepped analysis, Ewing and Rong study the impact of sprawl on household energy use. They argue that dispersed land use brings about larger houses and more detached units, which consume more energy than the smaller houses and attached units typical of more compact communities. This comment suggests that their conclusions are intuitive and obvious, but that their complex methodology linking three unrelated data sets renders their quantitative conclusions suspect. Further, a simple engineering analysis can show more meaningful results, sprawl is more likely to affect energy use through increased vehicle miles traveled than house size or type, and household energy use can be mitigated by increasing the efficiency of the building envelope, heating/cooling system, appliances, and lighting. Still, combining the effects of compact urban development with the effects of energy‐efficient vehicles and housing unit design can be a real winner in our quest for more energy‐efficient communities. Date: 2008 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:houspd:v:19:y:2008:i:1:p:45-52 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2008.9521626 Access Statistics for this article Housing Policy Debate is currently edited by Tom Sanchez, Susanne Viscarra and Derek Hyra More articles in Housing Policy Debate from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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