It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that city life equals a loss services and amenities routinely available in the car-orientated suburbs. I feel this from time to time as an apartment dweller in the West End. But the great thing about Downtown Vancouver is if you dig a little deeper the city is continually being programmed by a range of businesses for compact urban living. Hidden among the residential towers of Downtown South/Yaletown along Richards Street is a branch of Encorp’s Return-It depot specializing in beverage container and electronics recycling.
This ‘Express’ location provides a facility for Condo residents to simply walk down with their pre-purchased bags loaded with bottles, place them on the scale, enter their membership info, and the goods disappear into the back sorting area. In a day or two your account is credited after an off-site inspection and you’re good to go.
No need to drive out to a large suburban plant that requires ample parking and space for truck movements, the Express location maximizes its site with a well programmed floor plan making your life as a city dweller more convenient and accessible.
Yes, it’s cool. But consider the externalities. Somewhere out in the suburbs people have to suffer the large collection and sorting warehouses and the traffic that results from all the trucks delivering the little collections from the city enclaves. And have the smug city dwellers telling them how much they suck for living in the car-dependent suburbs near to their workplaces. Which are spread out by necessity to accommodate large warehouses/processing plants, and have wide streets to accommodate the large trucks that move the accumulated recycleables…
Author
Interesting point. Bottle Guys ran their operation out of Ontario and 7th for years and now just off boundary in Burnaby so they and others are using light industrial zoning in or near density already in place
Any dense city needs a deep hinterland for food production, warehousing, shipping, sorting, garbage etc .. there is no shame in living in the city or in the ‘burbs. It is merely a life style decision. One is not more noble than the other.
The general ignorance about oil or energy in general of the “green” folks living in tiny condos biking to get their organic latte is astounding. They pretend that they have a lower (carbon) impact, yet forget that their bike was manufactured somewhere else, then shipped here, which needs huge amounts of energy and that the bike tires are made from oil and the chain needs regular oiling, and that the coffee also was grown far away, roasted which used loads of energy and arrived by (diesel) truck in the coffee shop. Even the concrete tower they live in used up huge amounts of energy to be built, and the vegetables or even the tofu needed growing, harvesting and transporting which used oil and hinterland. The running shoes and yoga pants use nylon which is an oil by-product etc ..
We need to appreciate the co-dependency a bit better and the energy used for the entire chain of events when we buy or eat something, as berries do not grow in your freezer nor do the yoga pants grow in the store 2 blocks away.
The world uses about 250 BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) per day, and 75-80% of it is oil, gas and coal. Here’s the reason why: Energy Returned on Energy Invested. ERoEI. Look at this chart which shows THE WORST ratio for corn based “green” biofuels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested
The best: hydro and coal .. then oil ..
BC is blessed with loads of cheap hydro. Not everyone is so fortunate. Energy use matters.
True urban dwellers have a tiny fraction of the oil consumption of suburbanites even with all things considered. Suburbanites consume more space and more stuff to fill it. Suburban living is not merely a lifestyle choice – it comes with consequences.
I love it when the environmental impact of a bicycle is thrown back at us. How low will you stoop?
Living in the ‘burbs and living much nearer to the recycling depots and the city dump means that the plastics, glass, organics and trash are transported far less distance than the inner city urban dwellers junk.
The suburbanites will soon be demanding carbon tax rebates and credits since their existence uses less CO2 and is helping to save-the-planet™. Extra credits for growing their very own kale.
Really not the point I was making Thomas. Why do you choose broad stereotyping and misrepresentation of other’s remarks as debating tools? If you had a stronger argument it wouldn’t be necessary IMO.
“The general ignorance about oil or energy in general of the “green” folks living in tiny condos biking to get their organic latte is astounding. ”
What a false and divisive stereotype. Knowledge of oil and energy is why ‘we’ make lifestyle choices to minimize our need for oil. (I use a plant-based oil for my bicycle chain btw). In fact, I’d venture to guess those green folks you stereotype are as aware or more so of the embedded costs of their consumer behaviour than most.
Yes some are. Many (especially young folks) are not. Many are utterly clueless about energy, especially scale. They think a few windmills, biking and a few solar panels will solve the world’s energy problems. Due to hydro and natural gas BC is quite green already. Not every jurisdiction is so fortunate. All our imports from Asia use dirty energy, by and large. We export our energy needs abroad. Then we import stuff made with coal based energy, or if on the East-Coast buy oil from human rights kings Iran, Saudi Arabia or Iraq, but can’t agree on a east-west pipeline.
Check this guy out, Peter Tertzakian, Canada’s foremost thinker on reducing our energy footprint: http://www.arcenergyideas.com/?p=737
How many ‘young folks’ have you polled? The fact of the matter is that young people didn’t get us in this predicament. But they sure as hell have to get us out. Your statements are rife with assumptions and inaccuracies. Try harder.
I know plenty of young folks who know almost nothing about taxation or energy matters as it is not taught in school. Only the CO2 brain washing but none on energy matters or the waste of public sector unions and associated debt or energy sources, or our co-dependency. Any time you eat, drink or buy stuff you use energy. They bike more than the suburbanite but then flies to conventions, to Europe, Hawaii or Mexico on vacations while the suburban dweller takes his family camping on Vancouver Island. With a family of four this is
not much different per head in terms of annual energy consumption !
Where you live is a life style choice. Please do not pretend that somehow you are saving the planet living by yourself in a concrete high rise with car share option.
Happy happy father’s day to all the fathers out there.
I deduce: without fathers there would be no mothers, kids, and future societies.
What did I learn from my father ?
– work hard
– be educated
– be street smart
– be friendly
– be direct
– state your opinion
– follow up if you do not know the answer or if you told someone you will get back to her/him
– have humour
– love and play with your kids
– see the world, many interesting places out there
– look at the business aspects of engineering issues
– have fun !!
What exactly, is this predicament you speak of?
There are plenty of people of all ages who don’t have the knowledge gap you attribute to young people Thomas. I wouldn’t have posted a comment if I had known you would follow it up with more broad brush b.s. You think suburbanites don’t take airplane trips or Mexico vacations? Give me a break!
should read: ‘who have the knowledge gap’
What predicament Chris?
LOL, what buses do you ride Eric? That’s the outstanding question to my mind. If you are unfamiliar with the various challenges facing current and future generations, I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m sure you don’t …
I remember what NDP MLA member Corky Evans said”:
“It is my belief that if you are born tomorrow in British Columbia you are richer than pretty much anyone in the world.”
Of course, dystopianism is very hip and trendy. The young don’t remember when LA smog was really bad. Do they remember when no fish could be found in the Seine or the Thames? Even the Hudson River is cleaner. They couldn’t tell you what the now banned CFCs are. With modern development in crops, famines are almost unknown and people are living longer, everywhere. Hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty since international trade has allowed third world countries to sell to the west.
Kvetching about something, anything while sipping a soy latte and scratching ones beard is so cool.
“More than 31 million people in the region are said by the UN to need food now, but this number is expected to rise to at least 49 million across almost all of southern Africa by Christmas. With 12 million more hungry people in Ethiopia, 7 million in Yemen, 6 million in Southern Sudan and more in the Central African Republic and Chad, a continent-scale food crisis is unfolding.”
Blathering about how great life is, from a privileged perch in a bountiful land, is so unsurprising.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/may/22/africa-worst-famine-since-1985-looms-for-50-million
Bike more and live in a tiny condo: world hunger solved.
Cute !
Really not the point I was making Thomas. Why do you choose broad stereotyping and misrepresentation of other’s remarks as debating tools? If you had a stronger argument it wouldn’t be necessary IMO.
From our privileged perch Chris, we worked hard and just about solved the problem with new drought resistant grains and other agricultural developments. You’re probably too young to remember emergency grain going to China and India. That doesn’t happen any more.
“Since the start of the 21st century, more effective early warning and humanitarian response actions have reduced the number of deaths by famine markedly. The most serious famines have been caused by a combination of drought, misguided economic policies, and conflict. The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia, for example, was the outcome of all these three factors, made worse by the Communist government’s censorship of the emerging crisis. In Sudan at the same date, drought and economic crisis combined with denials of any food shortage by the then-government of President Gaafar Nimeiry, to create a crisis that killed perhaps 250,000 people—and helped bring about a popular uprising that overthrew Nimeiry.”
The World Peace Foundation reports:
The figure speaks for itself: famine and mass starvation is at historic lows.
https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/files/2015/05/famine.jpg
https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2015/05/27/the-end-of-mass-famine/
I suppose there will always be some that think this is The End of Times.
Like Thomas, you choose to misrepresent others remarks. Did I say it’s the end of times? No. I said young people have a mess to clean up. Based on your comments and viewpoints — thanks to folks like you. Good job Eric.
What’s the mess and what’s the predicament, Chris?
Is Howard Camping talking to you?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Harold_Camping.jpg
What mess Chris ?
The world is in far FAR better shape than a decade, 3 decades or 10 decades ago, in terms of life expectancy, health, average incomes, % of folks in poverty, or % of folks that are starving.
Some links:
Fewer hungry people: http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/01/411265021/there-are-200-million-fewer-hungry-people-than-25-years-ago
Fewer poor people: http://www.pewglobal.org/interactives/global-population-by-income/
Life expectancy has increased: http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/health/life-expectancy.aspx
Yes many problems remain. Keep working at it, or make tons of money so you can donate more money, form your own foundation or just pay more in taxes !
Air pollution rising at an ‘alarming rate’ in world’s cities
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/12/air-pollution-rising-at-an-alarming-rate-in-worlds-cities
Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts
http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Worldwide displacement hits all-time high as war and persecution increase
http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/6/558193896/worldwide-displacement-hits-all-time-high-war-persecution-increase.html
I expect we could play duelling links forever, but the facts remain, these issues weren’t created by young people, but they will have to deal with them, which was, and remains, my original point. Your attempts to misrepresent my remarks are valiant, but they don’t refute my original contention.
See that’s the thing. People should just stop telling others that what they’re doing is bad. If somebody likes living in the suburbs or in the city and it fits their tastes and it’s working for them, why criticize them?
Exactly.
If people paid the true externalities I’d say right on. They don’t. Suburbanites don’t pay for the excess fossil fuel consumption and it’s damage to anywhere near the true extent.
Suburbanites are planting and nurturing trees and other plants in massive numbers that are essential for capturing CO2. This foliage is vital to balancing the atmosphere and life itself is dependant on this. The city isn’t called the Big Smoke for nothing.
The massive gas taxes paid by those that have to drive help enormously to pay the 50% deficit that urban bus and train riders escape paying under the present system, where each transit ride is subsidized.
Remember too that when those living in the suburbs venture further into the countryside for recreation, they travel much less distance because they are closer to wilderness and therefore their fuel burn is far less than the urban dwellers that scramble to exit the city en masse at weekends.
Most in the suburbs also grow something they can eat. The explosion in popularity of herbs means just about every home has their own basil and parsley. Many people grow all kinds of vegetables and fruit too. Tomatoes are everywhere.
City people need to face the reality of the massive amounts of machinery, labour and fuel required to haul these staples of life into the city daily, not to mention the massive army of trucks rumbling to the suburbs and beyond with all the garbage the city generates.
A comprehensive accounting of the externalities, as is the popular jargon, could expose some serious deficits by those righteous city slickers.
1. Suburbanites homes occupy far more space where trees had to be removed in the first place. And the excessive proportion of roads and parking make your comments ridiculous..
2. Gas taxes don’t even cover the cost of roads let alone the pollution of car dependent sprawlers.
3. Remember too that urban dwellers are closer to everything they do.
4. Excellent. We do it in community gardens.
5. It takes way less energy and machinery to bring in our goods than to bring in suburbanites for their jobs and entertainment.
6. Calculations of externalities have always shown urbanites to have smaller impact than suburbanites.
After some research I found nothing that showed that fuel taxes cover roads adequately in the US nor Canada. Most states or provinces incl federal share of gasoline taxes cover usually about 33-50% of road cost. Clearly one could argue we need to charge road use more. However, since all goods and services you use use roads in some form, it is like another tax. The trucker that picks up the apples and trucks them to your nearby store you roller blade to will have to increase his fee for delivery, so the apples will be more expensive.
It is certainly a debate worth having if increased road tolls or gasoline taxes but decreased GST or PST is a better choice and results in different behavior ?
Like energy, roads are in everything you eat, drink buy or use and as such it is a hidden PST, HST or GST increase.
In principle I am all FOR increased energy taxes (to force energy efficiency) and increased gasoline taxes or road tolls (to force less car or truck use), but we need to lower consumption or income taxes in lieu – BUT USUALLY DO NOT. The continued increase in taxes cannot continue forever !
For once I agree with you. That has always been my point – increased road/fuel taxes must be accompanied by decreases in other taxes. If everyone paid the true cost of their transportation choices there would be a lot more rollerbladers and a lot more money in many people’s pockets.
Who has ever thought there is less service and amenity in the city?
That is an absurd intro
Author
Should have quantified it with Living in the city carfree.
I live car free in the city. What do the suburbs offer that I don’t have within a bike ride?
Space ? a yard for the kids ? less noise ? a yard to BBQ in ? more trees ? birds you can hear in the morning (as opposed to police sirens or drunk folks yelling) ?
I have all of that… all the space I need. My “yards” are public and I can meet neighbours and build community. There are lots of trees and even more in the green spaces I didn’t sprawl into. I hear birds more than sirens and drunk folks yelling is extremely rare.
I also have everything I need within walking distance and everything I want within cycling distance.
So, again… what am I giving up by not living in car-dependent sprawl?
Here’s the website:
https://www.return-it.ca/express/about/
Seems labour intensive from Encorp’s perspective.
I suppose that the benefit is that it “sanitizes” the experience – so it may encourage those who would steer clear of the smelly industrial location, as they won’t have to rub shoulders with the binners.
Hmmm.