To many, going green means moving to the countryside. If it鈥檚 your carbon footprint you鈥檙e worried about, though, you鈥檇 be better off cultivating an urban idyll.
The reason is that city dwellers generally live closer to the places where they work, shop and play, and are more likely to walk, cycle or use public transport than suburbanites or country folk. Of course, the food and other raw materials city dwellers need must be transported from the country 鈥� but as most people living in rural areas in developed countries only get a small proportion of their food and goods from their immediate surroundings, their transportation costs are not necessarily any lower.
What鈥檚 indisputable is that the energy cost per head of home heating, waste disposal and other shared infrastructure is much lower in densely packed cities. Add it all together and you come to the conclusion of a study by the in London: that in most parts of the world the average city dweller is responsible for far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than their rural counterpart.
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聯The average city dweller is responsible for far fewer emissions than country folk聰
Read more: Blueprint for a better world
