[sustran] New Urbanism, Portland and THE ECONOMIST

[Paul Barter]

The discussions on Portland are interesting... but I feel compelled to
offer some perspective on cities outside North America, Australia or New
Zealand.

Almost everywhere else in the world, urban population densities are much
higher than in the USA.   In most cities in Asia, Africa or Latin America,
high densities are a reality that must be coped with rather than a policy
goal to debate.

High urban densities cause their own transport challenges and
opportunities. Dense cities do have the chance to achieve a high role for
public transport and non-motorised transport.  But they also face the  very
great danger that even relatively small numbers of vehicles can cause a big
problem -- vehicle numbers can shoot up during an economic boom MUCH faster
than the urban fabric (and road systems) can possibly adapt (witness
appalling traffic problems in Bangkok, Seoul, Jakarta, etc).  In many ways,
this is the opposite issue to that of places like Portland, which is trying
to avoid some of the problems associated with extremely low densities.

Here are some 1990 density figures (in PERSONS PER HECTARE) published by
the team led by Jeff Kenworthy of ISTP, Murdoch University, Western
Australia (of which I have been a part). These density figures carefully
exclude non-urban land uses in the calculation so that they should be truly
comparable.   Wherever possible, the entire metropolitan area is included:
so for example, New York's figure is for the whole Tri-State Area and not
just New York City.

        Low Density Cities
Houston 10,   Perth 11,  Portland  12,  Washington DC  14,  Chicago 17,
Sydney  17, New York   19,  Vancouver  21, Los Angeles   24  (unfortunately
this LA figure is LA County only - the entire metro region would be
slightly lower)

        Lower Middle Density Cities
Toronto 26 (whole Greater Toronto Area),  Copenhagen  29, Montreal  34,
Hamburg 40,  London  42,  Paris  46,  Zürich  47

        Upper Middle Density Cities
Stockholm   53,  Munich  54,  Kuala Lumpur (entire Klang Valley metro
region) 59,  Vienna  68,  Tokyo  (entire metro region) 71, Brussels  75,
Singapore   87

        High Density Cities
Bangkok 149, DKI Jakarta 171, Surabaya  177, Metro Manila  198,  Seoul
(entire metro region) 245,  Hong Kong   301

Various estimates that I have seen suggest that these Asian figures are not
exceptions. Most large developing Asian cities are above 100 persons per
hectare.  Some Latin American cities may be a little sparser but are still
mostly well above 60 persons per hectare.

I hope this helps give a broader perspective.

Paul.

A. Rahman Paul BARTER
Sustainable Transport Action Network for Asia & the Pacific (SUSTRAN)
Secretariat, c/o Asia Pacific 2000, PO Box 12544,   50782 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.   Fax: +603 253 2361, E-mail: <tkpb at barter.pc.my>
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