Right-Sizing Cities for Maximum Power: Urban Form Parameters for New York City and the Greater Philadelphia Region

Jae Min Lee and William Braham
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Jae Min Lee: School of Architecture, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 44610, Korea
William Braham: Department of Architecture, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-17

Abstract: This paper examines the urban form parameters in theories and ideas related to the urbanizing world. Adopting emergy (spelled with an “m”) synthesis, we studied New York City and the Greater Philadelphia region to determine the appropriate urban form, including building height, development density, bulkiness, and transportation. The European and North American mid-rise urban block is an effective settlement type for reducing per capita emergy in construction and building operations. Buildings over 40 stories with a development density exceeding a floor area ratio of 5 tend to show higher emergy investments per person. Large and bulky buildings with low surface-area-to-volume ratios that reside on the periphery of cities consume a significant amount of energy due to conditioning building space and the increased transportation needs for commuters.

Keywords: urban form; urban design; sustainability; emergy analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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