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Urban or rural: Which is more energy-efficient?
Most Americans live in urban areas, forming huge hot spots of energy consumption. But while rural residents use less energy overall, cities are often slicker about it.

By

Russell McLendon
Tue, Sep 01 2009 at 9:30 AM
 23

Related Topics:

City & Urban, Energy Efficiency

 

More than half the U.S. population is packed into three dozen well-lit metro areas, each one home to at least a million power-hungry people. Surely Americans could save money and energy by living somewhere simpler. Right?
 
You'd think so, especially looking at nighttime satellite photos that show dark landscapes illuminated by glowing urban dots. On the surface, these seem like clear evidence of city dwellers' oversized energy footprints.
 
And when comparing big cities and small towns directly, a Philadelphia, Pa., obviously dwarfs the power consumption of a Philadelphia, Tenn. Urban and rural populations use energy differently, though, which complicates such broad comparisons.
 
"There are a lot of things that go into it," says Stephanie Battles, director of the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Energy Consumption Division. "We know that urban areas are heat islands, for example. The temperature in the summertime is always higher [in cities], so they use more air conditioning. But in the wintertime, urban areas are also warmer, so they use less heat than rural areas."
 
The heat-island effect — created when concrete and asphalt replace soil and plants on a large scale — can therefore make cities more expensive in summer and cheaper in winter. Since it takes more energy to heat most homes than to cool them, this tends to benefit chilly Northern cities more than balmy Southern ones.
 
But aside from broader climate patterns, population sizes and pavement coverage, how do the owners of farmhouses and penthouses stack up head-to-head? Is it dense to live densely, or are rural residents being left out in the cold? The simplest way to answer such questions is by looking at per capita consumption, which zooms in to see how an average citizen uses energy.
 
Transportation
Despite hosting regular traffic jams, cities win the head-to-head efficiency matchup in transportation thanks to their mass transit systems and denser layouts, which promote walking and bicycling. Small-town and suburban residents usually have to drive themselves to get around, which isn't cheap.
 
According to EIA data, urban U.S. households own an average of 1.8 vehicles each, compared with 2.2 for each rural household. Urban families also drive about 7,000 fewer miles annually than their rural counterparts, saving more than 400 gallons of gasoline and roughly $1,300-$1,400 at current gas prices. 
 
Housing
On the EIA's Residential Energy Consumption Surveys, respondents identify whether they live in a city, town, suburb or rural area. It's self-reported and unscientific data, but it does offer an idea of how the four demographics consume energy. Urban households are the largest group, with 47.1 million represented, and they use the most total energy, about 4 quadrillion Btu per year.
 
But a different picture emerges when you look at per capita consumption rates — cities have the lowest annual energy use per household (85.3 million Btu) and household member (33.7 million Btu) of all four categories. Rural areas consume about 95 million Btu per household each year, followed by towns (102 million) and suburbs (109 million).
 
Similarly, urban families as a whole spend at least $30 billion more for energy each year than their country cousins, but each individual urban family actually spends about $200-$400 less. That suggests that urban homes are more numerous but also more efficient.
 
Why the difference? Aside from environmental factors, it's a combination of infrastructure and behavior, Battles says. The compact construction of urban condo towers and apartment buildings helps insulate their indoor climates, while large homes common in less dense areas need more energy for heating and cooling, and have a harder time keeping air from leaking outside. Look at the infrared image at right, for example. The red, orange and yellow colors show where heat is escaping from the house during winter.
 
"Of course, in urban and rural areas the housing structure itself is different — you have more density and then you have larger, free-standing homes," Battles says. "It's also behavioral. For example, people in New York City are gone a lot, but people in rural areas, a lot of times they're home more often. It's different lifestyles, and different-sized families."
 
Conserving energy
Living in a suburb or small town doesn't doom a household to wastefulness, however. The U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA have a wealth of information online about improving a home's energy efficiency.
 
Sealing and insulating windows, doors and cracks is a big step, since space heating and cooling make up the biggest slices of the pie chart above. Checking air filters, unblocking A/C vents, replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, upgrading to EnergyStar appliances, and turning everything off when it's not in use are also effective ways to reduce a household's energy consumption.
 
For more tips on becoming an urbane energy consumer, even if not an urban one, check out the DOE's Energy Savers site.
 
Images: U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Transportation; MNN tease photo: Shutterstock
 

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Comments: 23
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anonymous
whitney May 14 2010 at 12:50 PM

hey did you know that you can just chat here and it will post it so talk to me by writing things in the comment box ,,,, whats up??

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anonymous
Aaron Oct 30 2009 at 4:42 PM
Having lived in both the city and the country and having driven long haul in a truck, I can tell you two things: Energy-schmenergy, you can measure consumption guesses with statistics all you want, but it means nothing. What matters to make humanity more stable is to change our lifestyles. Period. If you like living in the city, then good. We don't want you in the country. If you like living in the country, then great, stay out of their cities. How much energy you consume being in one or the
.... More
other is meaningless compared to the lifestyle and your happiness and impact on things. Which brings me to the next point. Your impact is what needs to change. When your lifestyle involves buying gadgets, eating in restaurants, buying food imported from three thousand or more miles away, watching television for 5-8 hours daily, and tossing out ten pounds of garbage daily, you're not happy. You might think you're happy. Al Gore appears perfectly happy in his 12,000 square foot mansion and driving around in his fleet of bulletproof SUVs and private jet. He's not. Happiness is about having a real life, being a real human. This involves knowing your neighbors, your children, your family. Talking to people instead of staring at the tube. Eating food you probably grew yourself or got from a farmer whom you can name and have shaken hands with. Happiness is watching worms eat your kitchen scraps so you'll have great soil for your porch herb garden. It's showing children the constellations in a clear sky, walking down the street with the dogs and stopping to talk to everyone who's out in their yards or on the porch. It's shoveling snow by hand, knowing you're healthy enough to do it, and going to the neighbors to help them shovel theirs, because maybe they're not. All of this is a lifestyle change. It's a change towards sustainability. It doesn't require you spend $20,000 on home renovations to "become neutral" or an extra $10,000 on your next car (that you don't need) so it's a hybrid, or any of that. It's about living simpler, happier, more human lives. Every American could cut their energy usage by over 50% TODAY, RIGHT NOW without having to buy anything, install anything, or move into a cave. All it takes is a new view on life and a realization that buying, owning, consuming, and throwing away is not the life cycle of happiness.
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anonymous
Guest Sep 18 2009 at 4:25 AM
Oh man some people are too funny. The article is about admittedly unscientific napkin calculations for energy use on average and people are taking it as the greatest personal insult. Yes, if you grow your own fuel and ride a horse around and "fertilize" your own garden than yeah, you're probably using less electricity than a city person, no one is trying to deny that (or limit the size of house you're allowed to live in). That's not most suburban families though so calm down, we still think you're
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amazing and applaud your noble efforts! haha
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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 10:36 PM
when considering the consumption rate, shouldn't you add in all of the infrastructure that also goes with city life? Cabs? Streetlights? Buses? Public buildings? The list could go on ad naseum. I think to be fair you should consider at least some of these things in the calculation. I live in the sticks, grow my own trees for heat fuel, have a well and do some of my own gardening. I am sorry, but there is no way my 'carbon footprint' or what ever you want to call it can be larger than someone who
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lives in a condo and rides around on buses and cabs. If you are going to make statistical comparisons, they should be comprehensive. One thing I learned about stats is you can make them say almost anything you would like. This is true 97.83% of the time, according to 98.63% of studies.
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anonymous
MotherLodeBeth Sep 02 2009 at 5:31 PM
So someone who lives in a rural 500 sq ft home and is off the grid using solar, has a grey water set up, only drives into town once a week, grows most of their own vegan diet food, and doesn't own a tv, cell phone etc is less energy efficient than someone in the city who eats out often, which means more use of natural resources to get the food to the stores or restaurants? Or doesn't use a grey water system which means valuable water is wasted and not reused. And what about all those buses that pollute
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the air? At least in our rural area we have more trees, which also cool our home in summer, and clean our air.
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anonymous
Richard Sep 07 2009 at 11:17 AM

These are statistics. What has eating out got to do with anything? How many cars does it take to transport the same amount of people as a bus? (hint: about ten) Did you actually read this or did you get offended at "Urban or Rural: Which is More Energy-Efficient?" ?

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anonymous
Snarkilicious Sep 02 2009 at 9:04 PM

Wow! What a complete lack of understanding of basic statistics!

I once met a woman who was taller than me. Therefore, all women are taller than men.

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anonymous
Adam Sep 02 2009 at 2:32 PM

It's official, enlightened cityfolk are better in everyway than stupid smalltown people.

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anonymous
Guest Sep 10 2009 at 12:41 PM

Are you serious? What an awful statement to make regarding small town people. I bet you shop your farmer's market every week and think highly of yourself to befriend the local farmer. Grow up!

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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 2:14 PM

A calculator based solely on square footage isn't very useful. I live in a rural area but spend almost nothing on residential energy because I heat my home with wood from slash piles (which would go up in smoke anyway, but burn cleaner in my stove than when the timber companies put a match to them outdoors) and run my pump with a solar panel. I agree that small homes make a big difference, though, and I think it's high time for building codes that limit square footage to conserve energy.

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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 2:24 PM

Am I to understand that you want the government to limit how big your house can be!?!

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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 2:18 PM

Those damn hipsters.

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anonymous
A guy who lives... Sep 02 2009 at 11:39 AM
"When it comes to urban planning and population growth, our media and politicians tend to operate with a wide range of assumptions about the consequences of various public policy approaches. Well intended though these presumptions are, they remain only presumptions in many cases. In some cases, they are factually mistaken. One such area of presumption involves what some like to pejoratively call ‘urban sprawl’ (though there is virtually no evidence of its existence in Australia – planning schemes
.... More
have not permitted unplanned and unserviced outer urban growth in decades). There is a wide spread assumption that suburban development (the detached house in a new housing development) has negative ecological impacts in the form of high greenhouse gas emissions and the per capita eco-footprint. The assumption is that this type of housing is by nature not sustainable, and that its auto-dependent occupants and their commuting lifestyle are somehow a combination which augurs poorly for a future in which we want to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce mankind’s impact on climate change."http://www.propertyoz.com.au/library/RDC_ACF_Greenhouse-Report.pdf
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anonymous
Robb Sep 02 2009 at 11:38 AM
My guess would be that, as you haven't factored in consumption patterns across ages, among other factors, that rural communities simply consume less across the board. Rural communities tend to have a higher percentage of middle-aged adults than 20-30somethings, and their carbon footprints are much lower as they're less active. Young city-dwellers consume ungodly amounts of goods which haven't been factored in here. And yes, they might drive to the grocery store, but they don't go every other day.
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This calculation needs more data. http://www.greenmeetup.com buy green products here!
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anonymous
Mike W Sep 02 2009 at 11:30 AM
Yes, it's the dream of liberals around the world to herd us all into urban tenements living like rats in a cage of socialism. Let's "re-wild" the countryside and live the megacities on top of each other. Yes, what a beautiful dream! Why don't we just stop creating so many darn people? That is the only true way to "save" the environment. 6 or 7 billion is 3 or 4 billion too many. Even after we all move into Al Gore inspired 400 square foot apartments in cities, in 50 years we'll be having this conversation
.... More
again when the population is 10 or 11 billion people.
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anonymous
J.B. Sep 02 2009 at 1:11 PM
Ridiculous. I'm as liberal as it gets, and I'd love to live in a peaceful rural area. In fact, I do. It's great. Futhermore, no, we're not all commies. The whole point of classical liberalism as defined by JS Mill is that the individual should be able to live freely with as little interference as possible from the state, and should be permitted to do as he pleases as long as it does not cause harm to others. This is the exact opposite of the "rats in a cage" situation you fear. Liberalism as about
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individual freedom, not conformity. The right wing scaremongers will say anything about liberals, no matter how ridiculously exaggerated, unsubstantiated, or downright fictional, as long is it keeps people watching. Do a little research into the actual meaning of liberalism before making your mind up.
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anonymous
Sean Roberts Sep 01 2009 at 10:21 AM

It's the city mouse vs. country mouse story with a surprising twist. Maybe we should all move to a condo and live stacked on top of one another ... but that doesn't sound like much fun.

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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 4:14 AM
You're entirely correct. The transformation of a decent-sized suburb, say, Apex, NC into some beast that had the same population density as, say, Queens, NY, let's take for example. They both provide similar things: Apex feeds into RTP, Raleigh, and the surrounding area for a lot of their jobs; Queens feeds Manhattan. Apex has a population of 3,1453, and a density of 1,918.2 people per square mile[1]. Queens is 2,293,007 and 20,991 respectively[2]. Let's not go quite as dense with this, shall we
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call it, New Apex: let's aim for a nice and even 10,000. This would ensure plenty of multi-unit housing (suburbanites, it really isn't that bad. If it was organized well, it would be pretty much like your neighborhood is today. Just on a slightly smaller and more vertical scale. It would be circular in shape, with a large park in the center. Avenues with two-way traffic act as spokes, and the park itself serves as an interestingly canadian roundabout about Avenues would be for shopping, and include both-way traffic. Streets would be similar circles to the park, each larger in diameter than the previous. This has to be done at a decent scale otherwise the curves are simply too acute. Avenues would be the business and night life centers. Small businesses would rent out spaces above the shops. This could be scaled to large businesses too: with todays technologies, there is no practical reason other than face-to-face time that offices should not operate in smaller teams. Instead of throwing 50 engineers at a problem, throw 10 engineers at 4 different, more distinct and (potentially) profitable in their own right while still solving the original business problem. Those teams need to be in constant contact, certainly: but they don't necessarily need face-time. With todays video telephony technology available so inexpensively (skype), there's not many barriers in the way except in thinking old-style business. To ease travel in to the large park at the center, you could have a localized mass transit system run the length of three avenues, spaces equally across the circle with the endpoint of each being the center of the circle. Say, 120 degrees each. You could walk five minutes, hop on the train for five minutes, and be in the center of a beautiful park. Mass transit doesn't have to be ugly, either. It could be underground, with an up-scale restaurant or two up-stairs, and more typical mall-food below. As you walk from the New Urban center towards the outer edge of town, you encounter progressively: Urban gathering place, semi-natural park area [think central park], natural park-type area [think central park, but let to be more natural - closer to a large Bond park. Nature left to its course with jogging trails, biking trails, etc], semi-natural, up-scale housing, up-scale commerce and hotels, commerce and middle-class, everyone else (including students, etc), an outer commerce ring (including hotels, highway interchanges, and so forth), and inter-city transport (highways, trains, buses, airports), followed by (if applicable), rural farmland or industral usage. None of this low-density crap, but plenty of medium density from typical to extravagant with park overlooks. Condo buildings can be built to maximize privacy while still providing either a pleasing view of the urban-center park or an inspiring view of the city skyline (consequently, you could also get either a view of a mirrored glass building towering over you or a view of the outer city with its smog from traffic, neon lights of cheap hotels, and so forth. Thus ensuring plenty of inter-building rivalry). Indeed, the entire New Urban structure could be planned to the minute level, but who would want to do that? It's an awe-inspiring capitalists dream, with class warfare and the fight to the high-rises with the potential of living just as privately as you do now. Or we could just make it a giant peace sign with a park in the middle. (note: dog-walks, sports centers, tennis and basket ball courts and so forth of course would be distributed fairly throughout the town). [1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apex,_North_Carolina [2]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queens
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anonymous
Bill Johnson Sep 01 2009 at 10:18 AM
...who is constantly going on & on about how I live in the polluted city but he's raising his kids in "clean air and lots of green" out in the country (i.e. suburbs with big lots) ....of course, he never talks about his 40 minute commute to work every day (which puts another car on the road) and the fact that that they can't even buy a loaf of bread without getting in a vehicle. I'd pay $100 for a carbon-calculator belt that we could both wear for one day....I guarantee that my city carbon footprint
.... More
would be swallowed by his.
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anonymous
Guest Sep 02 2009 at 2:15 AM

would make you look as gay as you sound

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anonymous
Grey Garvin Sep 01 2009 at 10:15 AM

....If you want to take good care of the environment, stay away from it and live in cities.

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anonymous
Elizabeth Sep 01 2009 at 10:43 AM

You can still live a city life and enjoy the environment. Take a train up the Hudson for a day hike & lunch in a small coastal town or rent a Zipcar and drive to the country to pick some apples. (Both things I did while living in NYC... too easy).

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anonymous
Elizabeth Sep 01 2009 at 10:45 AM

But it didn't post that way. Just clarifying! :)

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